DWDDT3 Of Toys and Curses
by VAPX007
Summary: A F.O.W.L. fortress has been discovered mid town and S.H.U.S.H. have redeployed forces to gathering intel on it. Meanwhile, back at Mallard Manor, another person comes knocking on the door in search of help. Drake is there for everyone. No matter how exhausted he is or how impossible the situation he finds himself caught in... Follows directly on from the events of More Darkness.
1. The Green Ganderino

**Of Toys and Curses**

* * *

**22**

**The Green Ganderino**

* * *

In the distance, behind a closed door, a phone was incessantly ringing.

In fawn trench-coat, brown wool sweater, light brown pants and worn old black shoes, Larkis Dovesworth trekked up the corridor. He had a newspaper rolled under his arm and was carrying a brown paper bag with bread sticking up out from the top. He stopped at the brown chipped door that had the number 506 marked in faded silver on it. He unlocked the door, slipped the keys back into his pocket and locked it back up behind him.

Larkis flicked the light switch, raising the gloom into a glowing red hue. In the centre of the living space was a lounge. Opposite, was a square window showing it was nearly sundown.

On the left wall was his photography station, with developer trays and chemicals, a line across the front of the shelves, a few photographs pegged up on it. Beside this table was a pin-board, made busy with dates, various notes, photographs and newspaper article printouts. He walked to the right, stopping at his study desk just before the table with his al-chemical equipment; beakers, test tubes, conical flasks and a Bunsen burner. Compared to the others, this first desk was essentially simple. It was a home for his laptop, printer, old style study lamp and his persistently ringing phone.

Over the table hung a few billboard posters.

**Come see **  
**The Green Ganderino!  
****Magic! Mystery!  
Coming to the ****St Canard ****Regent Theatre****  
This July to September 1967  
**

**The Green Ganderino!  
****A World of Mystery and Magic Awaits You****  
At the ****St Canard ****Regent Theatre****  
This October to December 1969**

Larkis dropped the newspaper under his arm onto the desk in front of the ringing cordless phone. Almost on cue, the phone stopped ringing.

As Larkis carried the bread back to the kitchen, the phone began ringing again. From the paper bag's contents, he assembled a tuna, mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato sandwich and ate it hungrily as he put away the small carton of eggs and other groceries into the fridge. The phone stopped and started ringing again a few times. Larkis took out the old lettuce and other questionable food remains and put them into the bin. He wasted no time taking the rubbish bag out to the garbage chute.

With a glass of water in his hand, Larkis casually returned to the desk and picked up the phone.

There was a delay and he drank his water, appreciating how nice the new silence was in his flat and set to removing his previous case from the pin board. Half a minute passed before the woman's voice on the other end came in an uneven rush. "Larkis?"

"Hi Clover," he tossed the items into a folder, "you sound out of breath."  
"Yes; I was taking in the washing when you picked up."  
He checked his watch, "Huh, so it is that time. How's Joey and Max today?"  
"Behaving. More or less."  
"And the pool?"  
"Still coming up at bath time. If they're like this next year, I might end up putting an actual thing in the ground."  
Larkis chuckled. "Who knows, you may be looking at a couple of deep sea explorers in the making."  
"Maybe." She laughed, "At least they'll have warmer gear then."

"So, what's up?" He started pacing the length of the room.  
"37 Alabaster Street, One Tree Hill." She read into the phone, "the description fits the 'free form non-repeating' category. It was reported three days ago."  
"What's S.H.U.S.H.'s ETA on the scene?"  
"You have a minimum of twenty five days." She stated stiffly.

"If they're busy, I'm busy..." Thinking on S.H.U.S.H. made Larkis stop to look through the window. He saw a black thing with long sharp claws on the S.H.U.S.H. roof, "what the heck is that?!"  
"What?"  
Larkis blinked and saw a duck in purple. "It's a doggone HEA curse!"  
"A full beast conversion?"  
"No, the guy's shifted back now."  
"Where is he?"  
_"Right on the S.H.U.S.H. roof!"_ He exclaimed at the nearness of it.  
_"Don't you go up there! Those snipers will get you!"_

"Clover, I'm sevent-..." He looked at the building opposite him. "The snipers are gone..." He dropped the phone, staring out at the suddenly vacant roof tops. "He's cleared out the snipers for me."

* * *

Larkis opened the window, looking over to the empty roof directly across from him, opposite to the S.H.U.S.H. building. Focusing his mind on the roof, he jumped his mind over the distance. Now, in the open air, he had a better view of the scene as the darkness gathered around them.

The beast form was peculiar. It rose up out of the the duck's feathers, his fingers grew long sharp claws. Then it drew back within the duck. From his new vantage point, Larkis could just make out the ever-present twisting, coiling in the air around the duck like tendrils of thin black smoke. It was as though there was something intensely smoldering beneath the purple duck's feathers.

He seemed to have more control over it than a typical curse victim; and was making a marvelously threatening show for his captured audience. He seemed to be saying things, but it wasn't loud enough for Larkis to make out.

All show.

And that was Director Hooter.

Larkis had so many mixed feelings over seeing his old boss he was compelled not to interfere.

* * *

A vampire and yellow clothed duck appeared the moment the sun vanished below the horizon.

The cursed one captured the vampire with a sprinkling of fairy dust.

Still all show.

Third and last to take on the cursed was the yellow costumed duck. This one gave Larkis the impression of a tough room and a flat foot; the smoking duck was a benign curiosity to him. Yellow was primarily focused on investigating what was going on between the cursed and Hooter.

As for Director Hooter himself, Larkis couldn't make out many words, but by his voice he was clearly terrified and trying not to be. The question suddenly occurred to Larkis about how long they had spent on the roof together before his arrival.

* * *

_"...The antijack-Hooter-you...!"_

The cursed shuddered and collapsed.

_"...Agent SplasherQuack, please take Drake Mallard to the morgue. Have Doctor Bellum do a full neurological dissection, bisection-trisection-quad-section, and while she's at it, a dissertation on what the heck I was just forced to endure!"_

Most of Hooter's sudden loud rant was meaningless to Larkis, but these words he understood quite clearly.

The yellow duck went inside the building with Hooter and for the first time in forty years, the S.H.U.S.H. roof was vacant.

* * *

Larkis Dovesworth jumped his mind across to take stand where SplasherQuack had just disappeared with the curse victim.

He waited a time for the vampire to lose interest in the place. A motorcycle went off into the distance. Ten minutes was surely enough.

The only room in the building he knew with accessible unlocked windows was the infirmary on the middle floor. Larkis scaled down the side of the building, carefully making his way down to the row of windows of the infirmary and climbed inside.

A duck in a white medical jacket was standing over the curse victim, her dark hair in a pony tail, a large array of medical equipment at her disposal. It spelled two things quite clearly; this duck was still, for the moment, alive.  
Larkis waited for her to finish the procedure before interrupting. "Dead, alive... Just a minor detail to S.H.U.S.H.." He frowned.

Doctor Bellum twisted, startled.  
"What grave typicality." He eyed her in reproach. A very pretty version of Doctor Vykes and probably just as demented.  
"Who are you?"  
"Till death do us part." Larkis answered cryptically.  
"How did you get in here?" She asked more intently, implement still in hand.  
"Someone was good enough to remove the snipers from the roof." He answered simply. "This poor soul, I believe."  
She stared at him.

"Those snipers have only been keeping me out forty years."  
She stared blankly at him.  
"The Green Ganderino?"  
She shook her head.  
"No, of course not. Hooter would only share that information with his most trustworthy agents." He smiled lightly and nodded. "You won't find anything in the sectional procedures on this fellow. You're looking in entirely the wrong place."  
"How would you know that?"  
"He's suffering a variant of symptoms I've seen several times before." He swerved casually past her, looking at the readings on the equipment. "Very low energy readings; practically negligible. The victim will need days to build his energy back up. Would you say this was a result of the 'antijack' that Hooter used to pacify him?"

"Ye-es... how do you know about that?"

"I heard mention. Thank you for confirming it; I really couldn't hear very well. Do you enjoy your work, Doctor Bellum?"  
"I do..."  
Larkis summoned the energies and cast a hypnotic field around her.

* * *

_"Drake Mallard died at one thirty-two am.  
All di-bi-tri and quad sections were performed as ordered by Director Hooter.  
Autopsy results yielded the deceased was the carrier of an unidentified blood curse.  
__I, Doctor Bellum, am therefore attributing the deceased's surprising behaviour and physical... acumen to said curse and its interaction with the antijack." _

* * *

He stopped the cast and she sank into a stupor.

Larkis snatched a sampler from the tray. He took a blood sample from the curse victim and put it in the pocket of his trench coat. He'd take a curse investigation over a ghost every time.  
"So, 'Drake Mallard'," he read the name on Doctor Bellum's reports out loud before disconnecting the power to the machinery. Now he had it three times for memory's sake and she wouldn't second guess the idea that Drake Mallard was dead. No S.H.U.S.H. orderly would move a living patient to the morgue; he was safe.

On with the show. Larkis moved to the door and opened it. What he saw made him freeze in terror.  
"Hooter..." He widened his eyes, looking at the narrow corridor and multiple doors before him. "You didn't!"

Larkis stepped backwards into the infirmary. He slammed the door shut, breathing heavily, back against the door. "How... he knew..." he shut his eyes, "Hooter, you monster..." he swallowed. The echo of carnival music rose from his memories. The sinister sound of maniacal laughing. Where it had happened...

"No!" He yelled, banishing the maelstrom from his head.

He stood for a long time, his head in his hands.

It was Doctor Bellum stirring from her stupor that forced him to regain his sense of himself. Larkis went to the nearest window and climbed out as Doctor Bellum shook herself, confusedly brushing off the sleep.  
"Fatigue." She yawned, "I really ought to stop working so late." She self-diagnosed and busied herself with pushing the medical carts away from Drake Mallard's bed.


	2. Drake Mallard IS

_A/n: No ownership, only story._

* * *

**Of Toys and Curses**

* * *

**23**

**Drake Mallard IS**

* * *

Drake woke up with daylight streaming onto his face. A presence. He immediately bolted up, jumping to the ground ready to fight.

_"Alright! Get away from me, you whoever you are...!_ Hooter?" He let his pose relax. J Gander Hooter was a short elderly agent in reasonable proximity to 'a gentleman'. In physical combat he was all about defense. "I suppose you're here to explain to me why I'm here... again." He gritted, "But you know, let's just skip all that and get to the part of me jumping-out-of-the-window. Good bye!"

"Drake-."

**"Darkwing Duck."** He countered severely, looking at Hooter in his typical regular grey business suit standing in the sunlight room of many empty beds. "How may I help you, or conversely 'not' help you, since apparently respectable polite etiquette e-lu-udes you...?"

Hooter blinked at him.

"Didn't you catch my drift?" Drake said tersely, _"I said_ 'you'_ a lot!"_ He gestured to Hooter. "As in _'it's all about you'_!"  
"I wanted to apologise."  
"_No, you didn't!_ You don't respect me; I don't respect you. That's our relationship. Apologies not included. Now, if you'll excuse me." He turned for the window.  
"Please don't do that it's dangerous."

Drake cringed. "Don't get your regulations in a bunch, Hooter. It's unbecoming." He stepped to the window, grabbing his fedora hat from the chair as he got there.  
Hooter sighed, "Please."  
Drake stood by the window, eyeing the fluttering curtains as he put his hat on. Want, want, want. He turned back to Hooter and gestured to the door. "Then leave so I can go."

"I'm not going to ...defend my severe lapse of judgement about the Ripperjack case."  
**"Good start." **Drake responded darkly.**  
**Hooter took a slight undignified breath. "Neither of us has made a very good first impression on the other."  
_"We're a bit far beyond first impressions!"_ Drake glared at him.  
"Then I'll tell you some more impressions-."

**"How's the demotion?"** Drake interrupted smugly, folding his arms.

* * *

Hooter stopped, watching him. "...I know he wanted it."

"Really? I wonder why?" Drake responded in scathing sarcasm, "You know, he was very happy under Harold Mallard's command. They worked as a _'team'."_

"How did you know that I was demoted? You have literally only just woken up. There are many factors that they consider."  
"And '_I_' know them _'all'."_ Drake finished imperiously. "I'm just sorry I wasn't the _'first'_ person you slipped up on." He stared stonily at Hooter. "Here at S.H.U.S.H. we value our integrity-."

_"Please!"_ Hooter's face contorted. "You're really very terrible."

That hit like a compliment. "Ah, so happy you've noticed... **at last.**" Drake smiled in dark triumph.

* * *

The door to the room opened and Grizlykoff walked in. "Ah, forgive interruption."

"Er. Not at all, sir." Hooter backed up, "I was just hopefully leaving."  
Grizlykoff nodded. "Very good; you have good afternoon, agent." Grizlykoff turned to face Drake directly. "Darkwing, we have F.O.W.L. assignment would like to give you if you feel up to it."  
"R-really?" Drake smiled, feeling his world expanding. "Yes, sir, I'd be happy to help!"

The door clicked closed. Hooter had left.

* * *

Grizlykoff looked back to the door for a moment. "I is sorry for what you have been through so far as employment go, Darkwing."

"I don't normally go on huge monologuing psycho rants. That antijack was just nasty."  
"It was for fighting nasty demon."  
"Yeah; it made me sorry for the demon."

Grizlykoff sighed lightly. "If I had not interfered, you would have been safer."  
"No, sir I would not." Drake replied smartly. "Because by the time you came the antijack had already activated. And even if it hadn't. Babysitting his breaches takes your time away from other cases. Meanwhile the situation only gets worse. You called it the minute you found out. That. Is what makes me confident that you stand for S.H.U.S.H. integrity. You're a good agent for us to have as a director."

Grizlykoff relaxed, a sober expression on his face. "As I say, if 'he' had not interfered we would not even have argument. S.H.U.S.H. procedure took walk under bus for this case. Was complete shock to system." He clenched his teeth. "I blame self, I am one who do routine cross check of database. I should have seen hole. Even then, I did not see hole till you started filling it in. My eyes bug out of head. Is one thing, think you know everything of place, is another to see you do not." he sighed, "is fortunate was not any worse."

"If it makes you feel better 'I' didn't see the hole either." Drake supplied.  
Grizlykoff raised an eyebrow. "How did you know to look?"  
Drake chuckled, "Because I'm a detective and boy: he looked guilty."

* * *

"Darkwing. I must discuss situation regarding Doctor Bellum."  
"She was working for Hooter. She's a very good actor."  
"No, she is not actor, Darkwing;" Grizlykoff corrected seriously, "she is genuine crazy. She is manager for research department teams, however she has now met you because of Ripperjack case..." He paused. "She is... how do you say this...? 'Big fan'."

"Wow." Drake breathed. "Crazy on cases, crazy off cases, Director, this really is something we need to put time in to investigate."  
"Unfortunately for me, 'now' is not feasible with training both myself and new Assistant Director once placed." He sighed, "very busy time ahead."

"I-I'd like to say I can look into it for you, sir..."  
Grizlykoff chuckled, "Perhaps after F.O.W.L. case, it will be still here when you return."  
Drake smiled.  
"Agent Fishburn is heading case. You will find her at Museum. She will give briefing on mission."  
Drake nodded with a smile, "Very happy to help."

* * *

The museum was closed. Drake showed his S.H.U.S.H. ID to get past the S.H.U.S.H. guards at the door. There were teams of personnel trekking about the place. Black electrical cords lay perilously across the glossy tiled halls. Most of the people were working on something in the geology room.

The woman overseeing the project wore a regulation grey jacket with S.H.U.S.H. printed over the front pocket and slacks, a heavily laden utility belt and firearm. Her blonde hair was tied up at the back.

"Agent Fishburn?" Drake asked, mostly certain.

She looked up from her phone. The intense look of concentration on her face turned to 'unpleasantly surprised'. "Don't tell me Grizlykoff sent you. I asked him for an agent."  
Drake swallowed, "Uh, what seems to be the problem?"  
She sighed in annoyance, "You're so smart Mr Filing Clerk, why don't you figure it out and stop wasting my time?"  
Drake hesitated, trying to find the best answer to that.  
"Dowell!" Fishburn barked, "need to talk to you about C7 on that grid." She walked off.

* * *

Drake turned back to the room. There were so many people in here. No in tact fingerprints. No idea how the thief got in, nothing left, no evidence of who took whatever rock since he wasn't a museum buff and they'd literally pulled the entire cabinet out to redo the security rigging.

Darkwing Duck was beginning to feel just a little bit frustrated.

* * *

"Bah." Drake grumbled, looking at the jumble of rocks on the cart in the next room, "Who'd want a stupid rock anyway? Grizlykoff said this was a F.O.W.L. case. So how do I find them?" He turned around. Ask someone here? Who here would know? All these people did was put in security systems. He walked out. "No problem. Easy. Just find F.O.W.L., any 'real' S.H.U.S.H. agent would know exactly where to look. A five minute job."

From the historical records he'd scanned, Drake recalled that The Fiendish Organisation for World Larceny was essentially arranged on a three tier hierarchy. The first tier being the untouchable 'High Command', the second tier being its top agents and beneath them lay anything from a solo act to squadrons of eggmen. If it was a solo act, Drake had very little chance of finding anything given nothing from the crime scene. On the other hand, a squadron of garishly garbed goons was far easier to spot.

It begged the question of how Grizlykoff had known it was F.O.W.L., but Drake hadn't recovered the information from the desecrated crime scene; Fishburn must have absconded with it like F.O.W.L. had the rock. Never mind. Squadron. Find all the places a squadron could hide. He resolved to start with the biggest places a squadron could hide in the inner city and work down from there.

Drake sighed, walking back to S.H.U.S.H.. No transport, and his phone wasn't up to the task of reviewing all the buildings in the inner city. He looked at his phone. Flat? He needed to charge it; he was probably going to need it when he got to F.O.W.L. as well. Walked. To F.O.W.L. That was.

The nausea he was feeling was probably due to the fact he hadn't eaten in days and it was nearly lunchtime. He should probably have thought of doing that instead of racing off to help some person who didn't want it. And then he wouldn't be feeling so nauseous now. And not like it mattered to Agent Fishburn if he keeled over from starvation. She wasn't going to thank him. And since this search analysis was going to take a while, he was probably also going to need dinner on the job.

All for some dumb rock of any description. It wasn't exactly a full collection in there. Not even any Fool's Gold.

Worse for the matter, Fishburn wasn't going to thank him for getting it back for her either. He filed that under 'extremely unlikely'.

Because it really was just some dumb rock.

On the other hand, Drake finding F.O.W.L. would be nice. Agent Fishburn _'had'_ given him a free run for when and how he got it back. He'd never dealt with F.O.W.L. before.

So this was going to be fun!


	3. Arrangements

**Of Toys and Curses**

* * *

**24**

**Arrangements**

* * *

_...A swirl of purple._

_The lights of the party..._

_...The comforting warmth in his touch._

_The confidence in his voice..._

* * *

"Morgana!" Mortimer snapped.

Morgana casually looked up from her half eaten dinner over to her fiance's untouched plate, then up to him. Mortimer was wearing his burgundy colored satin vest today. Her own clothes were her customary black from high neck line to heel and wrist. The afternoon light was beginning to wane through the large Victorian dining room window, throwing the dark wood color of the furniture into a dominating oppression against the white table cloth and dismal white painted walls.

"You're not listening to me!"

Morgana raised a bemused eyebrow. "I think that was a song at the party." She tried to recall the tune, _"I say, you say..."_

"Morgana!" He repeated in an unhappy tone.

She frowned lightly at him. "Mortimer, you haven't eaten anything in three days."  
"I would, but you keep lacing the food!" He gestured to his plate.  
"Oh." She replied flatly, feeling some disappointment. "So you're aware of that. I suppose you can't just eat it anyway?"  
Mortimer glared at her. "I'm very convinced you've caught something at that party."

_Like a swirl of purple..._

"Morgana!"

Morgana blinked hard, trying to pay attention.

"What is this?" He gestured to the dining room, the entirety of the chateau and everything that had to do with their lives. "You're not here right now."  
"Thank the goddess for small victories." Morgana retorted in quiet sarcasm.

Mortimer sat back, fuming. "It's no '_small victory_' to me!"  
Morgana was suddenly alert, "What's the matter?"  
"Your father." Mortimer swallowed, his face contorted into disgust. "Is happy."  
Morgana felt a wave of anger, "What about?!"  
"You, in this daze. He thinks I've done something to you."  
"What?!"  
"Level two hypnotism."

Morgana stood up, the whole room blurring in her temper. "What!" She lifted all the tableware from the table and threw them at him.  
_"Argh!"_ Mortimer dodged, a fork scraped his neck, a plate flew past his ear and smashed against the credenza. "Morgana, being upset isn't going to solve anything!"

**"Oh, we'll see about that!" **Morgana summoned an electrical charge and pelted him with it.

Gaining a sudden strength from goodness knew where from, Mortimer stood up. "You can't defeat me, I'm better at magic than you are!"  
Morgana hit the credenza with an enchantment. It came to life and started chomping at him.

Mortimer threw a disenchantment to return the credenza to normal. Meanwhile Morgana summoned the potion decanter from the kitchen.

Mortimer saw it. "I am not drinking that!"  
"Fine, so take a bath in it!" She flung it at him.

He caught the jug. The momentum caused the potion to splash over his hands and face.

Mortimer blinked in sudden surprise, looking at the jug, "What, but this is..." He staggered backwards, dropping the jug as he bumped into the credenza. Mortimer looking blearily at her as he sank slowly down to the floor.

"I don't blame you for my father, Mortimer." Morgana explained, calming herself with her minor victory. "But I have a matter to resolve and you're in my way."

Mortimer finally fell asleep.

It had only taken her three days to manage the feat.

* * *

It wasn't time to breathe a sigh of relief, however. Morgana cast a constriction spell, then levitated him to his bedroom. She set about layering a bonding spell on him, a trapping spell on his bed, on his room and then an anti-vampire spell over the window and door. It was as much she could think of to do without hurting him. She took up her nap-sack and purse then enchanted her suitcase and had it follow her to the door.

* * *

She stepped out onto the path and looked back. Her father had given her this chateau as an attempt to get her and Mortimer closer together.

For a moment, Morgana regretted the silence of the darkness. It would be nice to have a cat or even a toad for company. She pulled the napkin from her purse and cast a portal, focusing her mind on the address.

* * *

Mallard Manor was a surprisingly old building for what Morgana had so far seen of duck living. The trees, she noted as she took herself up the gravel drive, were veritably ancient, old and gnarled and widely spaced. The fence was marked by old stone. In places was a lone wooden post half rotten in the ground, telling of yet another time.

The house, as Morgana got closer, had a somewhat bizarre construction, with ancient, hallowed stones placed in an arch over ancient bricks. Building out further to the left and right were old bricks and then further to the addition to the right... she considered for a time, yes it must have been a stable. A substantially large stable, and they had built it in and put arched shutters over the front of it.

Morgana stepped up onto the porch and knocked on the dark oak door.

* * *

"Uh, hello." She said with as much pleasant politeness as possible. The middle aged duck in a green sweater was undoubtedly Drake's father. "Mr Mallard, I'm Morgana Macawber." She handed him the napkin that she'd been pouring over earlier as proof of her invite. "Very pleased to meet you."

He double took her words, looking over his son's handwriting on the napkin. "I'd thought I'd taught him better than to bring his work home with him..." He let her in the hall and showed her to a lounge room. Morgana watched him interact with his phone for a brief moment. He put it away with a steady measure.

"Can I get you a drink?" He asked politely.  
"I'm sorry, I do feel a little uneasy about everything; a glass of water would be nice, thank you."

* * *

This room was within the oldest part of the house, but they had managed to make it look very closed and cozy. The only reminder of the extreme age around her was the fireplace. It reminded her of Castle Macawber where she'd grown up.

Morgana's mind went back over the way the stones had been arranged around the bricks. Beneath the manor lay a small castle. A castle set on the rolling grassland of Mireham.

A castle called 'Mallard Manor'. This was a very ancient family she had walked in on. Perhaps, on some level even, 'worthy'. She had never given a care to such things, but it was certainly an argument should her father ever be sensible enough for a yelling match.

* * *

Harold fetched and handed the glass down to his son's visitor, sitting on the chair. If peculiar was a person, it would be her. There was this sense like a bomb was about to go off. What did his father call a person like this?

_'From the moment she walked in the door, I knew this dame was gonna be trouble.'_

"I'm not a detective, miss..." He paused. She was nervous, but a little too sensible.  
"Oh, I haven't lost anything, I was looking for a, well, a kind of 'business' proposition."

He leaned forward, peering intently at her, his elbow on his knee and his chin on his hand. "My son's in civil services. What kind of 'business' do you think a public services officer would be interested in?"

"Marriage."

Harold straightened back in the chair. A second consideration of her appearance. She was respectable, polite, well spoken, and holding her position. Her clothes came from a completely different time period, and every sense of her was of the bizarre. There was the distinctive smell of incense hanging in the air around her. There was a force behind that quiet pose. And yes, she had a pretty beak. She was a thin, tall dark haired refined lady with porcelain feathers and an alto voice. Her blue-green eyes held a clarity set in an expression of thoughtful musing.

"Miss Macawber. There is one thing I'll say: You _'may'_ be his type." He watched the hint of pain behind her eyes. "That's a slim category, miss."  
"I'd like to know what would constitute so that I might work myself to that end."

_"Why?!"_ Harold exclaimed, "You are you. If you're not you, then what kind of happiness is that going to make?"  
"Every marriage has compromises..." She looked away. "I don't..." she looked back to him. "Mr Mallard, there is a list of reasons for me doing this, some are selfish, some are, unfortunately desperate, but there is an intangible... when we touched."

Harold looked at her wryly. "Lust?"  
Morgana flushed slightly, "Well, that's not... quite what I was getting at with this one."  
"Is it on your list?" He demanded to know.  
She pursed her beak and nodded. "It's rather a 'slim category' on 'my' part, sir."

"Alright, well, you're honest, at least. So this other intangible feeling. You feel like it's 'fate' or something?"  
She raised her eyebrow, "Surely that's not something you believe in?"  
He smiled at the 'preposterous' tone in her voice, "No. Just throwing out ideas."

Morgana shrugged lightly, "Have you heard of a thing called 'spirit energy'?"  
_"What do you want with my son's spirit?!"_ He asked instantly on defense.  
"I want to marry him! Mr Mallard, if all my life's problems were miraculously solved and I had no other need, no other possible motivation, how could I possibly walk away... Mr Mallard, do you know how many couples in St Canard have compatibility on this fundamental level? I can't; I can't walk away. He's in my mind, he possesses my thoughts. It's him and whatever I'm physically doing."  
"Judging by the napkin, he's barely even met you!" Harold exclaimed.

She pursed her beak, "I need him."

* * *

Harold sank back in his chair. It took him several moments to come up with the next thing. She was just sitting there, apologetic, but not backing down. "My son has a much harder time of life than I do, Morgana."

"I have a small idea of that from the party. I regret my scepticism when he made those posturing remarks. He's an extraordinary duck."  
"You know _'ducks'_ have courtship rituals?" Harold frowned, pressing her.  
"That's the thing I'm trapped in." She said in a flatly unimpressed tone.

He felt his stomach clench. "You're in a violent relationship? What're the reasons you can't get out?"  
"Politics."  
"Wh...?" He raised an eyebrow, "Okay, that's not usual."

"I'm trying to arrange a marriage to escape an arranged marriage; my father grows more terse by the day as I keep pushing off the ceremony."  
"Your father's upset, and what about the man you're supposed to be marrying? Shouldn't he be more upset than your father?"  
"No, sir, he's a vampire. His sense of time is as skewed as his belief that he owns me."

Harold felt a fear flush through him. "A vampire can hear your heart beat, and you come here?!"

"I've put several spells on him and his bedroom. I have whatever time I have before he starts pushing against them, another short time before they break and anther short time before he tracks me here. Oh, I hope your son does come soon."  
"I can't account for what he's doing, but it's a half an hour drive after that."  
"It makes me nervous."

"It makes _'you'_ nervous..." Harold stood up. "Vampires..." He went over to the bookshelf. "What did great grandpa say?" He pulled out the leather bound journal book.  
"When I'm married to Drake, the betrothal bond will be void." Morgana explained as though it were a simple plan with no complications. "There won't be a threat at all."

Harold looked up from flicking through the book, "You think your boyfriend won't be ticked? You remember the party when the guy in yellow crashed in the window? In your situation that would be what you're trying to make Drake do. You think your boyfriend would be any less violent than I was? He might've been in yellow but I saw red! He was darn lucky Drake was there. I would've had his gizzards in the next round." He went back to reading. Aha, vampires. April 2nd, 1714.

She was silent, thinking. "I'm...I'm sorry. I just... my impression of your son. He..."

Harold stiffened, his finger frozen over the cursive writing. She hadn't come to see him, she had come to see... "my son. Yeah." He looked up at her. "I owe you an apology."  
"Now I'm very confused." She said in a faint voice.  
Harold swallowed, "Till my son gets back you're with me. Me handling a ticked vampire; that's where my brain is; especially when I don't know how long my son will be. Let me read this; we might need it."


	4. FOWL

**Of Toys and Curses**

* * *

**25**

**F.O.W.L.**

* * *

_Rustle, bang, eerie shriek._

_Run, dodge, swerve, splat, ouch._

_Thud, rumble, ear splitting cry._

_Run, swerve, duck, splat._

After careful examination of all the evidence, Drake was forced to conclude that a, Bird Cage Apartments was genuinely haunted by actual ghosts that existed; b, you didn't have to be afraid of ghosts to have an extremely intense dislike of them; and c, nobody wanted to be around ghosts and that especially including him and F.O.W.L..

Drake was forced to detour back to his flat for a shower. As he waited for the washing machine to finish getting the ectoplasm out of his clothes and utility sash, he had a second lunch to try and catch up from the last few days of eating nothing. While the dryer worked, he got back into his building search file.

The complete failure burned like too much vinegar down his throat; he should've recovered the rock by now. Instead he'd chosen wrong and wasted two hours on a useless expedition into ghost central and another one and a half hours wrapped around that in travel time and recovery. In his rush to prove Agent Fishburn wrong, he'd ended up proving her right. No S.H.U.S.H. agent would've made such a basic mistake; such a hefty haunting was inhospitable for any lengthy stay.

Oh, well, he couldn't really say he'd failed until he'd gotten to the bottom of his list.

Next one was the stadium complex which had plenty of large basketball and other rooms to hide in. No recent ghost sightings. Drake filed another scouting form and went to get his clothes out of the dryer.

He started putting the clothes on and stopped himself. "Stop putting Agent Fishburn first." He growled and went to the ironing board.  
"I am Shinqua," he recited quietly to himself as he ironed his purple clothes. "I am water. I am wind. I am flame. I am rock. I am whole. I am Darkwing Duck." He collected his shuko spikes and smoke bombs into his utility belt with his grapple. If he did manage to find F.O.W.L., that meant he needed all the help he could to stay up and out of sight.

By the time he was heading out the door Drake felt completely calm.

* * *

No F.O.W.L. at the stadium.

* * *

Next to investigate was the construction site midtown. Overall it looked like a fun place in the fact that it did not have any ghost sightings reported there and he could use his grapple.

Approaching by rooftop, Drake immediately saw the snipers on the third floor. One on each corner. Down below, he gauged their scope. There was a site office near the back fence. The gates on either side were open. A truck hauling dirt made a departure as he watched. There was a large pile of I-beams that could be used to block the second sniper's scope; but not the first. There were a couple eggmen in yellow jumpsuits and white helmets with black visors making patrol rounds. Given all this, Drake was left wondering when changing of the guard time happened. Unfortunately, that was hereto unknown information for him, just like the Museum robbery. No; he had to do this completely blank slate.

There wasn't anything else going on this side of the building lot at the moment apart from smaller piles of construction materials and a few choice weeds. Well, he'd filed the form to scout the place out and his job was to find a rock bearing the description of 'stolen', so it was time to move.

Drake timed the firing of his grapple for when the sniper wasn't looking, hooked and swung himself over to the fourth flour support beams. From above he jumped down and knocked out the problematical sniper. He waited for the patrol guards to turn away. On the rope of his grapple, he slipped down the side of the building and opened the main door before pulling himself back up the rope to ceiling level. Like the police station, he thought to himself. No camera had spotted him yet as everything remained status quo. Good so far.

* * *

With his shuko spikes, Drake slowly made his way across the ceiling of the F.O.W.L. midtown secret underground facility. It wasn't old like S.H.U.S.H. facilities. The security cameras were fancy low profile domes. He wanted to see if the F.O.W.L. surveillance crew would put up a full scale fight.

From above the door, Drake knocked and waited.

The door opened. He knocked the guy out from behind and jumped in the room to bring down the other eggman before he could barely utter more than a sound of surprise.

Had they called for security? He dragged the first unconscious eggman into the room, bound and gagged them. Drake studied the rooms on the monitors. The answer to that question was no; everything remained peaceful. There were a lot of monitors. It looked like they might be excavating on the bottom level as well as building machinery on the top level.

He made out the central testing chamber for the robotics. Interesting, but where was the rock? Why did F.O.W.L. need a rock? He gritted his beak in frustration. Why, Agent Fishburn?

* * *

Recite.

Monetary value  
Remolding value  
Chakra essence  
Various atomic and energetic properties

Drake considered. If they were excavating, could it be a diamond to help speed up their drilling?

He pulled out his phone to start documenting his progress.

_'I have reached the FOWL security observation room.'_

_'It looks from what I see on the monitors that FOWL are'_

A message came through over the top of his report file.

_'Summary Dismissal Notice issued 17:00'_

"What?" Drake blinked as it disappeared.

Ignoring the interruption, Drake got back to finish his note about the cameras. The field had locked off and a warning was suddenly coming up.

_'No changes permitted.'_

"Why not?"

With a frown, Drake tried the next field. A different warning came up.

_'All entries subject to management review prior to posting to case file.'_

Drake stared at the screen. "What was that that just popped up? A 'summary dismissal notice'?"

* * *

"I've been fired?_ Why?!"_

He scrolled back over the locked fields.

It clearly showed he'd been working all day. Unfortunately time stamps were the best part of the file.

The name of his case file was locked with the unprofessionally sarcastic working title of _'A Rock of the Stolen Variety'_. There was next to no evidence filled in on the crime scene report; he'd marked most of the fields as _'contaminated'_ and '_destroyed_'. The reason he'd given for proceeding was locked in as _'Director Grizlykoff said F.O.W.L. so F.O.W.L. is what I investigate and I'll try to find a rock along the way'_. Then was his lunch break and the building search work. Then there was a massive four hour chunk of useless notes, forms and reports dedicated to Bird Cage Apartment's ghost problem mixed up with his afternoon recovery break. Then was the stadium which had nothing to do with F.O.W.L. other than being in his search. His latest search had a cursory note saying 'I found it' and finally the comments he'd put in as the time hit five o'clock.

It looked so bad, the notice was probably issued automatically from the computer and had nothing in actual fact to do with Agent Fishburn not liking him.

* * *

Alone, with suddenly no S.H.U.S.H. back up available, Darkwing Duck was in the middle of a large criminal organisation's facility. One thing for sure was that he had to keep moving.

Drake took the board off line, plunging the room into darkness. He didn't know when the relief team would come in. They would be in for one heck of a surprise. He pulled the plug on the board and severed the cords. He needed to clear five levels, so he should be seeing the light of... he checked his watch and sighed. No Darkwing Duck patrol tonight.

The last thing he needed was F.O.W.L. getting an action picture of him. For sure these guys weren't fans of Darkwing Duck. If they spotted him, it'd be a whole lot worse than that.

Drake slipped behind security teams on patrol, following, ducking, creeping and occasionally scaling the walls to get clear. A silent shadow.

Eventually he got to the drill machine they were working on.

The museum's diamond was right in the midst of the workers.

Knocking out busy eggmen scientists from behind was easy. He grabbed out the diamond from its seat and dropped it in a utility pocket for S.H.U.S.H. return.

* * *

On his way back along the ceiling, Drake had come down with a case of curiosity. They were digging a hole, but they were also building machinery. Who cared if Darkwing Duck indulged himself more Intel of F.O.W.L.? Just because he also happened to be personally interested in the stuff as a crime fighter. He stopped at the testing chamber junction.

Drake listened, waiting for the patrolling guards to turn and leave the room, and slipped through the door as it closed behind them. The room had various machinery and equipment. Two eggmen scientists were working. Drake jumped down on top of them. He dragged their unconscious forms to the back of the room and returned to look at what they were working on.

The cover of the panel lifted off easily. What Drake saw made his heart leap. Motorbike! He took out his phone, snapping pictures at everything under each panel. Well, no, F.O.W.L. probably weren't building a motorbike exactly, but he certainly was! If he'd had the bike today, he'd already have found the rock for S.H.U.S.H., he might not have lost his job and he could've done something of appreciable value to the city tonight like stopping actual crime. Once he got out of here, he still needed to walk back to the Museum which was in the complete opposite direction of his flat.

Drake pulled out the useful electronic boards and a few choice small parts for the sake of convenience and shoved them in his jacket and spare utility pockets. His Ratcatcher was going to be way cooler than the one on the TV show!

Another second and he pushed himself to make an exit. No time for geeking out right now. The patrol guards would return. Drake hastened up the corridor, stopping at the door, creeping behind the four eggmen heading off.

* * *

The big cafeteria that had been empty earlier was now packed with eggmen. What the heck? Fortunately they were all facing the opposite direction. Unfortunately, that vague direction was the exit he was after.

A tall, buff rooster in a white Armani suit and looking very immaculate at the front was talking to them. Something inspiring about F.O.W.L. being all the choice words and nothing of strategic importance for Drake to memorize for later that he hadn't already guessed from his very long visit.

He crept behind the eggmen, getting to the side of the room. He was now staring, infuriated by how closed that door was down the other end. No matter what now, they were going to know he was here. His day had already been a ridiculously long run around. Find a corner and waste another hour of his time for what? Agent Fishburn?

Drake got behind the most separated eggman at the back and silently knocked him out. Drake quickly shoved his cape and hat into his pocket and jammed the eggman's shirt over the top of his and put the helmet on. All he needed was to clear out of this room in one piece.

He was nearly at the door when the phone message sound went off in his pocket.

He turned about to see everyone staring at him.

"Sorry, forget: no phones. I'm new here. Did anybody say 'lunch'?"

"Get him!"

Drake ripped the door open and slammed it shut behind him, flipping the lock and taking off at top speed.

* * *

He got up to the surface to the abandoned building site and heard the front gate shutting. Huge football stadium lights suddenly flicked on in his face.

"Ow!" He complained and took off at a dodging run to take up position behind the I-beams. Re-group.

The only other way out was the other side of the lot with the site office. He could use that for a bit of cover to get himself over the wall.

_"I dunno who you are, but you're gonna be real sorry you messed with F.O.W.L.!"_

"F.O.W.L.?" Drake questioned, as the speech guy got to the front of the cargo crate sized office just before him. "Thought it was WOLF, you know, war of league fans?"  
The guy lurched at him with a boxing move. Drake blocked.  
"Break into F.O.W.L. how stupid are you?"  
"You're kidding!" Drake laughed, landing a right hook, "F.O.W.L. is ten times better to break into than S.H.U.S.H., you guys are a cakewalk 'and', your stuff is wa-ay cooler. Look at this." He pulled out a circuit board. "This is going to put me over the line! You have no idea how happy I am right now!" He put it in his jacket again, not seeing any 'aha!' on the guy's face.

"I'm gonna make you dead."

That meant it wasn't on tracker, Drake smiled. "Think about it, boss! I get my stuff from you, S.H.U.S.H.'ll leave me alone. It's perfect!"

"You got a name I can put on your gravestone, kid?"

Drake gave him a web-kick. "Thanks, that's very nice of you." He pulled out his gas gun and fired the grapple over the top of the fence nearby. "But considering how embarrassing that dying in this daycare would be, just put me down with 'He got fired'."

"Heh, very funny."

Drake jumped the fence and landed his feet on solid pavement. He took a calming breath and dashed up the street. Mid way to the museum, he took off the eggman clothes and looked at them. Two sizes too big, even with his bulky jacket underneath. "Guess who's taking a trip to the attic? He put his cape back on and continued, checking his phone.

_'Needed at home.'_

He filled in his notes of what had just happened.

* * *

Drake stepped up into the front of the museum and found the S.H.U.S.H. crew nearly finished their work reinforcing the security system.

Agent Fishburn eyed him with quiet fury. "The day's gone." She said snippishly. "No point starting work now. Go home. And don't worry about coming back. I've already filed your performance review."

Drake stopped. "Oh, so it _'was'_ you. I thought it was weird that the computer would go off over a draft file." He pulled out the diamond from its utility pocket. "Found it in the 'trash out the back'." Drake handed the diamond to her. "Who's the guy with the motivational speeches and solid boxing moves?"

"What on earth are you going on about?" She asked in confusion looking at the diamond in her hand.

Something snapped in Drake's head. _"You've already fired me, Agent Fishburn, so quit playing this childish game and answer the question!"_ Drake responded tempestuously, _"What is the name of the rooster?"_ He asked in annoyance, "He's a big guy wearing a white Italian brand suit and he has a prosthetic beak. Give me his name and I'm gone."

"Steelbeak? He's only been a top agent of F.O.W.L. for 'twenty years'. Shouldn't a filing clerk know that? Why are you bothering me about him?"  
Drake turned away, "Because I needed the name for the report," he answered dryly, walking away. "Why else would I bother you for anything?" Drake stepped out of the museum, fighting off the feeling of gloom she'd given him. He picked up his eggman helmet from the step.

As he walked home, he saw a drink bottle forgotten by a bus stop. He picked it up and shoved it forcefully in the rubbish bin nearby.  
"No point complaining about performance stats. Everyone else meets them. It's a straightforward case of me calling my agent in the morning and telling her I want to go back to acting."

Drake tried to put off the feeling of misgiving. "Need to get home to dad." As he walked, he filed the remains of his report about returning what turned out to be a large diamond and put an extra note in identifying the rooster he'd previously described as 'Steelbeak'.

S.H.U.S.H. had fallen too far beyond Darkwing Duck's ability to help.


	5. The Deep End Part 1

**Of Toys and Curses**

* * *

**26**

**The Deep End Part 1**

* * *

Drake parked his little metallic blue Corgita car in the four bay garage alongside his motorbike. His dad's white Falcon was at the far end and his mum's car space next to his was empty.

Crossing past his motorcycle, Drake carried the electronics parts he'd collected past the motorcycle to the shelving unit. The small bits went into the Quackerware container with the rest of his collection. He wrapped the prized circuit boards carefully in a clean rag and put the bundle onto the shelving unit between the tub and the motorcycle police scanner that he'd salvaged from the wreckers a few months back. He took stock of the things he'd collected. All he needed now for the Ratcatcher was time and the patience of a saint to do the programming.

So, apart from patience, what else was he missing in his life? He considered. Replacements for the plastic parts in his gas gun so he could use it... as a gas gun.

Drake turned, stepped through the nearby door and into the house.

* * *

There was a slight scent of incense in the hall. He looked around.

"Drake?" His father called from the lounge room on hearing the door.

Drake turned and stepped through the doorway into the lounge room. By the fire, Morgana from the party sat. She stood up on seeing him, a smile on her face that he couldn't quite place.

"Morgana. Hi."

His father stood up, "I'll leave you two to it." He passed Drake, giving a strange, dark look. "Your mum'll be home anytime now."  
"Sorry I was..."  
His father wasn't hearing of it and left.

* * *

Drake hesitated, turning back to the visitor. "Um... nice to see you again? Morgana?"

She smiled more tentatively at him, "I must say it's nice to see you; you've practically occupied every second though in my head."  
Ha, now there was a line. He chuckled weakly, "Morgana, just tell me what's going on."  
"I-I don't know how to explain."  
"Use words; preferably English. Say enough of them; I'll start getting it." He shrugged.

"But you'll start drawing conclusions before I get anywhere near the end."  
"You just drew a conclusion on me right there!" He retorted, blinking at her.

"So far I'm 'concluding' that you don't want me upset. Have I gotten that part right?"  
She sighed, "Yes. I really... It's just so utterly impossible."  
"Look, I think I'm a pretty forgiving person, Morgana. My '_best friends_' are people who want to put my name on a gravestone for me. My '_worst friends_' are the ones who don't tell me what's going on." He stared at her meaningfully.

"I have a plan, erm, solution." She stepped up towards him. "To my problem. After talking to you, I saw... an opportunity. Out of my predicament." She was two steps away.  
"That's great news, Morgana, what is it?"

"I marry you."

The sound of the garage door and his mother's car driving in.

* * *

Drake flinched, staring at her wide-eyed, "Pardon?"  
"It's perfectly equitable. You have this house, a family line to carry on. A tradition to uphold. My father has betrothed me to that monster, but if I'm married to you it'll be void."

"We don't know each other, Morg-uh!" There was a sudden inexplicable feeling like fine tendrils delicately twisting up around him.  
"Don't you understand, there isn't any time; the number of spells I had to cast just to see you this one night."  
Spells? "You're a witch? What is he?"  
"My fiance _'is'_ a vampire." She frowned as though she were habitually not believed. "That's not to say I take issue with vampires; he's simply a repulsive individual to me."

The door, the sound of his mother crossing the hall, invariably to the kitchen.

If it was so unbelievable: "Your father set you up with a vampire without realising it?"  
"Whichever sorcerer got the top marks at the magic academy got my father's only daughter's hand in marriage. It's hard for someone as bullheaded as my father to conceive that a vampire could be more qualified in magic than he is, even though my fiance used his vampire powers to cheat."

"Wait..." Drake swallowed, "So you're saying you've chosen me over a top of the line, magic-missile casting, overpowered vampire?"  
"Yes. How are you taking that? You did mention you found me attractive before..."

Yes, he did. But that was not the issue.

* * *

"Before I even stop to consider this..." Drake took a deep breath and took her hand, leading her firmly into the hall. "I am Drake Mallard." He started, gesturing to the house, "this is my ancestral family home. I stand for honour and integrity; everything from the crest on the wall," He pointed the crest up high on the back wall, "to the thoughts in my wife's head." He pointed intently at her, "If you have any issue with that, we can work on finding another way. I know about vampires, and you know magic. Marriage is only one solution. We can find others."

Morgana turned about, looking around the hall.

In a moment the feeling of tendrils around him returned, stronger than before. She advanced and began kissing him.

He let his mind relax.

* * *

When she pulled away, he staggered, trying to re-solidify his buttered mind. "You've... taken lessons."

"I want to wear something nice for you." She said in quiet happiness.  
Meaning she hadn't been and wasn't wearing nice clothes, in her opinion. He took her fingers. "Has he actually bitten you?"

Morgana pulled away from him in a grimace, "I have never fancied him, Drake, not even remotely. I have read that vampires are meant to have an 'allure', but if he does, I'm immune."  
"Tell me the story. It'll help me understand."  
"Our first date. I spent nearly a month in the Elvian monastery recovering. I was attempting to be the good daughter, I wore, how might you say? Something that made me look edible. I am trapped, forever parrying, forever dodging, and dissuading."

"Something doesn't sound right..." Those were two different behavioural archetypes. "Oh, not you, Morgana," He said to her gathering expression of indignation, "his behaviour. A vampire who's so easy to dodge usually doesn't bite hard when they do."

"Oh, he bit me very hard. I assure you. I was there for most of it!" She seethed furiously.  
Drake flinched. "I'm not arguing with you, Morgana."  
"You're not? You sound so sceptical."  
He shook his head with certainty. "After seeing you two at the party I'll believe anything you say about him. Get your spell things set up. I'll get my parents."

He took a step towards the kitchen. A wave of guilt stopped him cold. What the heck was he doing taking advantage of this poor lady like this? No, he was literally not thinking. "Morgana. Stop." He sighed, "My parents always taught me to find the good in people. So. There are two..." He stopped, "there are violent bites that are meant to kill you. And there are inexperienced bites that are accidents. Have you two ever talked about what happened? Has he ever-."

"No, Drake, _he's-ugh!"_ Morgana made a disgusted sound.

"If we're to say the '_good in people_', I suppose the positive thing is he doesn't make me want to kill him; merely free my life of what it's become... I'm sorry for pressing so hard on you. I want my life back and you're..."  
Drake felt the tendrils around him again. "Morgana, what are..." he breathed, "doing... to me?"  
"Remember at the party, we touched, the energy between us?"  
He kissed her and then pulled forcefully away, what the heck; he did it _again?_

"Morgana..." He breathed, "it takes more than funny feelings to make a marriage work. We need to get along. Work together. Have arguments over day to day things. How about the kitchen? Come meet my mum."  
"Yes..." Morgana had an anxious expression and began wringing her hands together.

Drake stopped, there was something else to why she was pushing. "How long will your spells hold on him?"  
She swallowed. "Theoretically, till sundown tomorrow..."  
"I see. But he's a sorcerer too. There's no guarantee on a mixed supernatural's resistances."  
"Yes!" She hissed, "Oh, you 'do' understand!"

He sighed calmly. "Come meet my mum, I want to try to get the whole thing comfortable and 'normalise' the idea. If he does come to snatch you back in the next half hour he's going to get more than he bargained for."

* * *

They passed behind the stairs and two steps forward before the floor shook.

**"Morgana!"**

Drake's dad erupted from the kitchen.

_"Oh, no, did I call that!"  
__"Did I call that or what!"_

Drake looked at his dad looking back. "Look after mum." He shifted his position to a more protective stance in front of Morgana as his father stepped backwards into the kitchen.

"Mortimer, I'd like to have a conversation. If you can't handle that, I'll understand that too."  
**"How dare y-!"  
**Drake dodged, using the banister to somersault across the room. He snatched the lance by the suit of armour and pointed it at Mortimer. **"Toby, hold!"**  
Toby snarled in low displeasure off to his right and stayed.

**"What do you hope to achieve with that toy?"**  
"Tell me a story, Mortimer."  
**"A story? For sure, the sword beside you would be a better story."**  
"A good story." Drake ignored the suggestion and held his place, "A day you two were happy together. Really happy."

Mortimer's menace shrank away from Drake. "What are you meaning by this?"  
"Keep thinking!" Drake demanded. "I'll give you all the time you need."  
"I don't think you understand; we're betrothed."

"That's not a story!" Drake scolded.

"Surely there's something. Any time, a place, a trip you took, anything-come-on-Mortimer you've-gotta-have-something more-to-go-on-than-that!"  
"I..."  
"Are you serious?!" Drake exclaimed, "And you want to _'marry'_ her? I mean, do you _'want'_ to marry her?"  
"You want to marry her."  
_"I am a bug on the windshield of your life!_ It doesn't matter what I think; doesn't matter what I feel. This is about you."

"I see she's told you all about me."  
"That she was the first person you bit; that you haven't bitten her since."  
_"What?!"_ Mortimer hissed.

"She's not a doll, Mortimer. She may look good on your arm, but if you marry her you know you'll suffer."  
**"How can you possibly declare such a thing!"  
**"Because you're not attracting her, Mortimer! You're a vampire; she should be '_all over you_'!"

Mortimer inhaled, his menace wavering. "Yet. She's all over _'you'."  
_"I've barely been here ten minutes. My car's engine'll still be warm, if not hot."  
"There are two..."  
"The little one. That's how long I've been here, Mortimer. I'm a duck, and you've been stuck in that betrothal curse how long?!"

The menace vanished entirely and Drake relaxed his stance.

* * *

Mortimer turned to Morgana, "Morgana, what would you have me do? Your father isn't going to release us. I can't even repeat the things he's said to me!" He frowned, "He's a monster... and I'm not a saint, but..." He gestured to Drake, "please explain _'this'_ to me!"

"Erm..." Drake watched Morgana's face grow very pink. "I want to marry him."  
"Dear god." Mortimer uttered in shock of the news.

There was silence in the hall.

"Then he would take _'my'_ place. Your father-."  
"Then he can pick a fight with me!" Morgana replied angrily. "I couldn't care if he was a slug, much less a magical!"  
"This is too much..." Mortimer closed his eyes for a moment, his fingertips to his brow between his eyes.  
_"Oh, my god, Mortimer, what-." _Morgana fretted.

"Duck." A much calmer Mortimer looked at Drake, "let me be the bug on _'your'_ windshield." He stepped to the front door, opened it and walked out.  
Drake shrugged. He put the lance back.

"Good boy." He petted Toby before turning to follow.


	6. The Deep End Part 2

**Of Toys and Curses**

* * *

**27**

**The Deep End Part 2**

* * *

Mortimer stopped halfway to the far fence.

Drake pulled himself up three metres away.

"You're unsettling me." Mortimer commented, regarding him.  
"Why?"  
"This isn't a conversation distance."  
"It's not personal." Drake explained, "I just know I talk myself into problems as well as out of them."

"Unfortunately this isn't a matter of talking." Mortimer stiffened, "her father is not... like you."  
"In what way?"  
"Take your pick." Mortimer answered, "It's easy to see why Morgana is attracted to you; since she runs from the thought of him."

"She sounded like she'd stand and fight."  
"That's a fight. Not day to day. It's a disillusioned world she lives in."  
Drake felt regretful. "We just need to do what we can in the now."

"Oh, I don't want to say it..."  
Drake waited.  
"Her father is vulgar."  
"I've heard a few nasty things said in my life."

"Not so much you want to drain the blood from their body and crush the remains to powder." Mortimer raised his right hand and curled his fingers, studying it for a time.

"Uh, no. I'm a pretty mild sort of person." Drake answered in rather weak honesty.  
"He is not." Mortimer returned, "Master Macawber blames Morgana for being alive rather than her mother."  
Harsh. Drake clenched his beak, "Okay. So why the betrothal curse?"  
Mortimer scoffed. "That's politics. It's not about her being on my arm, it's that _'I'm'_ on _'hers'._ Unfortunately his insanity pinnacles at his family name."

Drake felt severe.** "If she marries me, she takes ****_'my'_**** name, I explained that '****_very carefully_****' to her!"**

"Oh, I bet you enjoyed her response to that."  
Drake swallowed. His mind was standing on a diving board over a very tempting pool of water as far as Morgana was concerned, "This isn't about me."  
"Yes it is." Mortimer countered. "Since you _'are'_ going to marry her; he's going to turn his attention onto _'you'_." Mortimer gestured to Drake. "I'm sure Morgana will do her best to shield you. But even a magical shield doesn't cover all angles."

There was some great consideration to be made over this Macawber individual, apparently. "Is _'he'_ the reason you're not attracted to her?" Drake thought to ask.  
"No." Mortimer answered simply. "I'm unsure but I think it's a vampire thing. He _'would'_ be a good reason though."  
Drake shrugged at the 'yes' part of his answer, "What about the rest of her family?"  
"They're as nice as witch-folk can be." Mortimer replied lightly. "Though of course, nobody believes I'm a vampire but you, Morgana and my mother."

"And you." Drake corrected. "Mortimer, don't forget yourself."  
Mortimer shook his head, "I meant to say, that you may never guess, how people may treat someone who is different from them."

Drake nodded sadly, "I'm a victim of that too."

* * *

A silence passed between them. Mortimer gestured to the house and started walking back.

Drake followed in step, thinking over the biggest thing in that conversation.

**"She takes ****_'my'_**** name..."**

"Why the spear?"  
"Oh," Drake answered without thinking, "because the broom is in the cleaning closet and we were in the hall. **She's still his daughter.**" He continued his dark thoughts.

"Was I not threatening to you in the slightest?"

Drake shook his head, "Had to do with why you were upset, and how you are when you're okay. Think he's going to be mad at me?" He continued thinking.  
"Severely. His daughter and a normal."

* * *

Drake opened the door and let Mortimer back in.

"If you ever need help, I suppose you can call on me." Mortimer offered in a helpful note.  
"Thank you, that's really appreciated." Drake replied lightly.

"Drake?" His mother called from the lounge room door, eyeing Mortimer with some misgiving before returning her gaze to Drake.  
He reached her and she drew him in a firm hug.  
"I want you to be happy in your life;" she said quietly over his shoulder, "don't you do this just for them."

Drake pulled away from her. "Oh, it's weird, but... Morgana..." he gestured to Morgana. She looked up from the candles she was lighting on the floor in front of the lounge room fireplace. "She's beautiful and brave, clever and sensible. She doesn't make me... I mean, sure her father does." He rolled his eyes. "My friend list has gotten bigger."

Drake glanced at his father and then stepped to the edge of the circle. He noted mildly to himself that he wasn't always a perfectly logical person. All he knew was it _'felt' _like an overwhelming amount of sense to do this. In the end, wasn't that what life was?

"Oh, Drake." Morgana frowned anxiously, "to think I just come in here..."  
He shook his head with a quiet smile, "What do I need to do?"

She took his hands, bringing him to step inside the circle with her. The tendril feeling was intense. She bent down and gently whispered into his ear the words of what sounded like a strange love poem.

"Uh!" He flinched, feeling the ethereal tendrils burying inside him. Then she was kissing, drawing, sucking something out of him.

* * *

Somehow, some time, they separated.

Drake staggered a step, the tendrils, they, they were inside him! Moving, feeling, his mind... a voice... _her voice... so beautiful... Morgana...  
_Morgana raised her eyes to him. She took a breath, **"A Mallard!"** She uttered in a definite tone.  
Her words echoed inside him._ "Yes!"_ He answered in quiet enthusiasm. "You understand."

"Drake, what's happened? What is she?" His mother asked.

Drake gazed at Morgana. "A mermaid. Under her feathers. That's why everyone was staring at the party."  
"Oh." Morgana uttered in response, looking away to the vacant lounge. "I honestly never considered myself like that."  
"Neither did I. But I've read the background notes for the treaty in 1949."  
She looked at him in curiosity, "I don't know what you're talking about though it sounds interesting."

With greater awareness now, Drake turned his head, looking over to Mortimer. "I think your line is 'I'm free'."  
Mortimer shrugged slightly. "...I was being polite."

Drake smirked at that. "Good night, Mortimer."

"May you all enjoy your evening. Mallards." Mortimer vanished.

* * *

_"Drake!"_ His father instantly rounded on him, _"You brought that vampire into my house!"_

_"Our house!"_ Drake returned, "what was I to do, dad? She doesn't carry a phone. My apartment's useless for anyone I don't want to get shot! I assessed Morgana's take on the situation and then I gave her the napkin. If he'd been dangerous he would've tried me at the buffet table before the problem a.k.a '_Morgana and I_' got worse. Not wait all the way till now. Not if he's dangerous. No, he's a normal, struggling imperfect person. That's the person you taught me how to talk through to. Dad, that was you. I'm good at my job because of you. Think through the problem, find the good." He hugged his father. "I love you dad." Drake pulled away.

Harold looked a little overwhelmed for a moment. Nobody said anything, watching him, waiting for him to speak.

* * *

"So, um, new... daughter-in-law, welcome to the family." Harold finally stated.  
"Thank you, sir." Morgana smiled and bowed slightly.

Eleanor came forwards and hugged Morgana. "Oh... tossed your chips in." Eleanor pulled away, "Come on, let's get a midnight snack, I'm famished." Eleanor led Morgana off by the hand.

Drake watched them go, the tendril feeling inside him remained. _Morgana...  
_"You alright, son?" His dad asked quietly. "That spell was something else."

Drake flexed his hand. Was he... somehow turned part mermaid himself? "I had no real reason to trust her, dad."  
"When?"  
"When she asked to marry me. I've never been so stupid. This could've been anything. I said yes before I finished thinking it through." He stopped, and then his brain just wouldn't take it back.  
"Well, you're done thinking now!" His father said in put-on enthusiasm.

"That's a fair point." Drake noted, "I'm never making that mistake again..." he chuckled, "Oh, she is so beautiful, dad."  
His dad clasped a hand on his shoulder. "Guess who's moving boxes tomorrow?" His dad chuckled and they left the lounge room.  
"Good job I didn't take much into that place." Drake considered to himself.  
They went in to the kitchen.

"You selling it or you want to rent it out?" His father asked.  
"I have to keep it." Drake answered in certainty. He glanced at everyone's faces, "Nothing like getting slimed by ghosts to make you appreciate your washing machine." He sat down next to his father.  
"Ghosts?" Morgana considered with interest, placing the teapot down on the table before also taking a seat, "I'd love to hear the story. Perhaps I can help... even the odds?"

Drake smiled. He glanced at his mother as she put the home made slice box on the table and sat down. The closest person to skittish was his dad. "Dad, I've never read about ghosts in this house."  
Harold took the teapot in hand, "Ghosts come from stories with bad endings. This is a safe house." His voice was stern, his eyes fixed on pouring his drink.

Drake nodded. "I agree." He stated emphatically, "But it's also a place people come for help."  
"Yes." His father put down the pot, staring at the thin reddish liquid in his cup. "But we two don't offer the same help. People can't come to this door and find me in your stead. Drake, what happened today? Why were you so late?"

Drake shrank back in his chair as Morgana finished with the teapot. "I think the term is 'a fool's errand'."  
"Drake." His father disapproved.  
"So they could fire me." Drake picked up the teapot.  
His mother breathed, "Oh, Drake."  
"Too much antagonism anyway." His father discarded, "Son, whatever you do, this house is where you belong." He frowned, "I'm sorry. But when you decided to become Darkwing Duck..."

Drake felt a sudden realisation of what he was talking about: The family curse.

"I can't call Suzie."

"Erm, sorry...?" Morgana was confused.  
"My old job." Drake looked to her with a wan smile. "An actor's got to be prepared to travel."  
"What about a restaurant?" Morgana asked thoughtfully.  
Drake paused, "You said you were wanting to open a restaurant."

Morgana blinked, "To tell the truth I don't remember what I said, but yes, I have been working towards it."  
Drake smiled at her, "Then you'll have an extra hand at lunchtime."  
"A restaurant!" Eleanor spoke up, "Now we're talking. Let's get planning!"  
Drake chuckled quietly, "I love you, mum."  
"I agree." His dad said, "It's a good project to get our new team dynamic into shape."  
Drake looked to Morgana, "You have notes?"  
She blinked at him. "I have savings..."  
Drake stood up, feeling suddenly very useful indeed. "I'll be right back with a fresh book." He paused as he passed Morgana and gave her a brief kiss.

"Mm, you're suddenly _'very'_ confident," she appreciated.  
He grinned as he headed to the study.

Because she needed him.


	7. The Poetry of a Straight Line

_A/n: Thank you for the guest review :)  
I'm sorry I put X-men down but only because they *spoiler* 15yr old movie* turned Raven(?) into Phoenix without any consideration to her psychology as a human being and then ended the movie.  
_

_To me there were too many poor choices around that and that's the go with X-men so I simply didn't want to know anymore. I could do a TMNT/DWD crossover with Gosalyn doing a Patrick Stewart (Jean Grey?) impression alongside April if I can find a story to wrap it in. _

_Funny talking about jerks specifically right know as I've been editing this page. Surely this is the guy you're on about?_

* * *

**Of Toys and Curses**

* * *

**28**

**The Poetry of a Straight Line**

* * *

The S.H.U.S.H. agency room was a large open area with rows and rows of sitting and standing hot desks. Along the left side was the main walkway and down the right was the long strip of windows that looked out on the front steps of the building.

Correlating data. A job found entrancing by some and mundane by most. Agent J Gander Hooter had been doing background checks on suspects all of two days. It helped speed up the workflow for the various agents tasked with actual live cases.

Even when people weren't coming in through the front door, a shift of light from a cloud over the sun through the window by his left would catch Agent Hooter's attention, causing his gaze to drift from his screen to the entrance of the large agency room. He shook his head. "Hum." He was just so close to that front door!

"Hmm." He mused to himself. There was no question 'why' his mind kept wandering. The job he was doing lacked bustle. It also lacked people interaction.

"Possibly too early to assert myself." He advised himself and returned his attention to the matter of Joe Hink's domestic complaint history.

* * *

Director Grizlykoff came in past Hooter's station. Over the past two days, Hooter had grown accustomed to seeing the great bear come in to pull agents away for discussion. Grizlykoff's unscheduled behaviour was a more individualistic approach to arranging order than he'd previously done as Assistant Director. However Grizlykoff's ultimate goal remained the same: with anyone he ever talked to, it was always about achieving the proverbial 'straight line'. Hooter thought his colleague was doing a very good job as the new director.

"Agent Fishburn. Debriefing. Now."

The tone in Grizlykoff's voice was not good. As the director led Agent Fishburn in for mission debrief, Hooter mused on what it sounded like. Disappointment. Weary exasperation. Disapproval. There was also a sense of pressure on Grizlykoff; stress showed fractionally in his motions. A misconduct addressal was only more work on his plate.

Hooter sighed as another wave of guilt washed over him. He'd inadvertently caused yet another person's suffering; Grizlykoff's. He kept an eye on the clock at the corner of his screen. How many mistakes would he make trying to fix this one? He shook his head. It was a worse matter if he didn't try.

After what was surely enough time he stood up and went to see the Director.

* * *

The agent returned from the director's office, passing him, her face was flushed. She had done something wrong and it wasn't Hooter's place to know those details, so he tried not to ponder over it.

He stepped past the vacant reception desk. Agent Smith had been redeployed full time to cadet training. Hooter had checked with her yesterday in the cafeteria. She'd given him a vote of confidence, citing commonalities to raising her boys and how she was very much on top of it. That was true to her character, of course.

Grizlykoff's door wasn't closed. Did he never close it given the empty reception before him? Hooter wondered.

* * *

Hooter knocked on the door frame.

"Ya?"

Grizlykoff's face had a mix of emotions to see Hooter. None of them, however was surprise.  
"You're monitoring security?" Hooter broke the ice with the throwaway question.  
Grizlykoff nodded quietly, "Is best practice. Keep finger on pulse."

Hooter cleared his throat. "I was wondering..." Hooter felt sorry, "In my capacity as a field agent, if there was something I could possibly do to help make things easier for you?"  
Grizlykoff took a sudden air of reproach, "Oh, so, _'now'_ you are interested?"  
"Yes... Yes, sir." Hooter answered firmly.

Grizlykoff watched him darkly, "I assign you to be partner with Darkwing Duck."

Hooter's eyes flew open. "Sir, th-!"  
"I am sure you have a thousand words to give me." Grizlykoff cut him off.

The fellow was monstrous! He had tortured Hooter for nine hours and felt himself justified in doing so. Hooter frowned, struggling back his intense feeling of dislike and horror. Indeed, he could give a thousand words on the subject; Grizlykoff was very right on that point.

This had nothing to do with facing his personal horror, however, Hooter realised. And he had already done that yesterday morning in the infirmary; satisfactory result or not, he winced.

And then what of his own misconduct with regards to Drake Mallard? Was Grizlykoff engineering a way that he could directly work to mend his mistakes? No, Hooter discounted. The sentiment was too poetic for Grizlykoff.

No, this assignment served a practical purpose somehow. To straighten the line.

* * *

Grizlykoff blinked in concern, "You do not usually take this long to speak."

"Erm, somewhat confounded..." Hooter muttered apologetically. "How does this help S.H.U.S.H.?" That was Grizlykoff's fallback position when he didn't understand something, "sir?" He finished.

Grizlykoff eased himself back in his chair. "Darkwing did not get entrance exam. Until I have new Assistant Director, he cannot get entrance exam; is impossible. However, agents are finding insult to selves, then they have blinkers like you. Protocol 2 is being breach. Has made large mess and is much work on me to fix." He rubbed his forehead.

He was stressed as Hooter had suspected.

"What kind of mess?"  
Grizlykoff shook his head. "Is enough you know he will not want to work with you or anyone."  
Hooter shifted his stance, "That's quite a situation."  
"It is." Grizlykoff stared heatedly at Hooter, "Since he is best agent this side of F.O.W.L.." He looked away with a growl, back to his computer screen.

Wide eyed, Hooter sat down in the interview chair. "Goodness, you wouldn't be this upset if it was just an administrative issue!"  
Grizlykoff turned back to gaze stonily at Hooter. "S.H.U.S.H. is like clock. If wheels do not turn together, we cannot tell time. Unfortunately case is: we cannot tell time. It is not your job anymore to look after whole clock. Only keep your part in it."

"Sir." Hooter insisted, "That's all well and good. But if I am to do this, I need to know the headlining issue."  
Grizlykoff gave a bitter smile. "Darkwing has, shall we say, 'not filed all his paperwork'."  
Hooter blinked, "He's breaching protocol 1?"  
"No." Grizlykoff answered faintly, still smiling bitterly. "Protocol 1 only applies to S.H.U.S.H. agents."

Hooter felt his insides clench. This had really come back round to the beginning?

"Invariably everything has to do with my previous misconduct."  
"Think on matter at hand, agent."  
"I would love to." Hooter answered pointedly.  
Grizlykoff frowned at his reply. "Darkwing is gone from here. He holds key strategic information on F.O.W.L.'s local base and its current operations. If we cannot get the information out of him, we will have to risk another agent on reconnaissance mission."

Hooter stared at Grizlykoff. "I didn't hear... we've found their base?!"  
"Darkwing found it yesterday. While looking for rock for Agent Fishburn."

_"Why? Why is he withholding the information from S.H.U.S.H.?!"_

"Ha." Grizykoff chuckled, "Is funny."  
Hooter frowned. "I can't say I'm amused."  
"If you are upset, imagine how he must feel. Darkwing could not even finish sentence, let alone fill in details."

Hooter blinked, recalling the starchy ironed vision of purple in his memory. Yes, he would find that upsetting indeed.

So then it was not for lack of trying? "He got locked out in the middle of reporting?"  
Grizlykoff nodded. "Fortunate we built last testimonial into system. He volunteered information that Steelbeak is leading facility and that they are working on new technology. He volunteered to finish mission and get rock back to Agent Fishburn."

"What did..." Hooter thought wildly, "On what possible grounds could she have had enough authority to dismiss him if he hadn't even gotten to the end of his mission yet?"  
Grizlykoff shrugged, "Is not important to you."

"Sir, if I'm going to work with him, I must insist! I need to know what he did wrong. He's an invariable fellow and he'll do it again and next time _'I'll'_ be the one in danger!"

* * *

Grizlykoff sighed. "I assigned Darkwing to Agent Fishburn's team. She say he arrived there, then he left. He gave no notice. He also submitted no updates on the Kulux diamond case file. Nothing. Then it was five pm. Agent Fishburn filed summary dismissal on him."

"So he walked off the job?" Hooter was confused.  
"Yes. He spent half an hour at the museum before he gave up."  
"But you said he found F.O.W.L.?"  
"Yes. He spent all day looking. Was filing report inside F.O.W.L. security room when it turned five."  
"Good heavens! Because he failed to report his progress."

"And yet..." Grizlykoff swung his screen around for Hooter to read. "His entire day is right here. Tell me, what do you think has happened?"

_a Rock of the [stolen] Variety_

Hooter glanced through the report. It was a skeleton; as though the author had died while on the mission and hadn't been there to fill in the details afterwards.

"I show his team-leader this also.  
I say 'I do not wish to jump to conclusions, but why am I seeing a second forensic report?'  
No answer.  
I say, 'What was wrong with the first report?'  
She say 'nothing'.  
So I ask 'why did you make him redo it?'  
She said 'I did not'.  
So then I ask, 'Then why did he do it?'  
She answer 'I do not know'.  
Is very clear now, so I ask 'Why did you not give him access to case file?'  
'He is not authorized for access to live information'.  
'Then how', I ask, 'Is he meant to file updates on his 'live' progress to you so you do not fire him?'  
She is silent.  
'This report says I gave him briefing. Did you not also give him briefing when you first saw him?'  
'No.'  
'I see. So in fact you gave him no work to do?'  
Silence. I repeat question, She say, 'No, sir, I did not.'  
'If he had no work from you, then he had no requirement to report to you. You had no authority to dismiss him'."

Grizlykoff swung the screen away from Hooter. "Now you know what 'Darkwing' did wrong. Please keep to self. Disciplinary matters are no longer in your job description."  
"My apologies, sir," Hooter swallowed, "for pressing."

* * *

"Breach of protocol 2 has cost S.H.U.S.H. vital information on F.O.W.L.. Also cost valuable agent." He sighed, looking back to his screen. "He was hours in that facility after he was fired. Must have mapped entire floor plan. Learned of all their activities. Memorized all their patrol routes. Is no question that he has made himself expert." He shook his head, "You have assignment."

Hooter nodded seriously. Make friends with the monster. "What suggestion can you give me to make it work?"  
"You are both diplomacy and infiltration."  
"Those are fancy words on a scrap of paper, Director. The field is a different place."

"First exercise we give cadet is to learn each other's names. You go from there to get up to here." He gestured to the Director's office.  
"Ah, now I see." Hooter smiled, "I'm very glad that I can help you, sir."

"Thank you, Agent Hooter."

Hooter left the director's office.

* * *

Learn his name.

Hooter sat down to a coffee at a sitting desk with a notebook.

Drake Mallard.

_Keeps clothes ironed. Neatly groomed. Meticulous in nature. Father was in the infantry division. __Chief strategies are diplomacy and infiltration. _

Hooter shuddered as dark shadowy memory flashed through his mind. He had to face his torturer; he said he would.

_'I don't respect you, you don't respect me. Apologies not included.'_

No it wasn't. Hooter stopped and amended his note. It was _'You don't respect me'_, then _'I don't respect you'_.

_'Please don't.'  
__'Then leave so I can go.'_

Hooter stopped, "That's reactionary behaviour!" He gritted, "You never see who ho really is because he makes everything about you and never about him. Who is this person? He seemed to be obsessed with history and the fact that I didn't know it."

Hooter turned to the computer.

The basic search immediately returned the titles of over a dozen movies. He clicked into the first available bio paragraph.

* * *

_Drake Mallard_  
_Not married_  
_Stage, theatre and movie actor_  
_Son of Harold and Eleanor Mallard_

* * *

_Eleanor Silvya Mallard nee Silverstein  
__Live __vaudeville __entertainer, acts notably include magician and lounge singer  
__Married to Harold Mallard  
One child: Drake Mallard_

* * *

There were no further hyperlinks for the entertainment division.

Hooter started a new search on the S.H.U.S.H. database. The computer struggled to load a large block of cases from 1880 to 1910s.

* * *

_Justin R. Mallard. First Assistant to the Director of S.H.U.S.H.. Diplomacy, architecture and system protocol design._

* * *

Police database? Again the computer struggled to bring up a huge block of cases from the 1930s to 1970s. The dates suddenly skipped to a new block of entries dated from 1850s to 1870s.

* * *

_Drake A. Mallard. Detective, Inspector, chief of police.  
__Quack J. Mallardson. County Sheriff, Western Province_

* * *

He checked the national defense database. Two honourable discharges covered the rest of the 20th century worth of Mallards.

St Canard historical archives? Hooter accessed their database.

* * *

_Mallard castle was built circa 1500's. Land of Mireham was gifted by the king to the legendary 'cursed knight' Sir Quackmire Mallard for services rendered to the crown and subjects above and beyond the call of duty._

* * *

"He's modelling his behaviour after an _'actual'_ knight; not just a TV character." Given the choices, it was easy to see why he'd jump into the cape, given the alternate was a heavy set of armour. Hooter sat back on the thought.

"The things you only know about someone if you bother to learn." Dazed at the simplicity, he looked around the mostly empty agency room. Agents came and went from here all the time. Looking, checking, searching; taking a moment to consider the people and situations they were dealing with.

A fond realisation came to him amidst the studious background noise of the room, "Ah, so this is why you put me on data correlation duty, Grizlykoff." Hooter folded his arms. "The poetry of a straight line."

Hooter lifted his pen to his notepad.  
_'If you want to be friends with someone, treat them how they want to be treated. In Drake Mallard's case, it's a knight.'_

Hooter stared at his writing. "Goodness, and then what?"

He grabbed his mug, "No, Gander, that's quite enough excitement for you to get along with for the moment." He sipped, "I just need to focus on this knight business. Sir Quackmire Mallard... and that TV show."


	8. Gosalyn

**Of Toys and Curses**

* * *

**29**

**Gosalyn**

* * *

"Gosa-ly-n!" A boy's voice called in complaint.

"_Gosalyn-don't!_"

At the sound of the child's panic, Drake dropped the box and ran outside. He caught the child just as she slipped from the scaling wall in the obstacle course.

He placed her on the ground, a redheaded bundle of fluff in a purple jersey. "Okay..."

"Oh, you saved me!" She gazed up at him; thankful yet a dazzling sparkle of curiosity in her eyes. "But where did you come from?"  
Drake froze, thinking back to what he'd precisely been doing at that moment. "Which box was that; comics or condim...?" He recalled the sound of glass behind him. He sighed. Maybe he should have left that stuff at the apartment after all.

"We thought this place was abandoned." Little Gosalyn explained up to him.  
"Abandoned?" Drake looked at the grass at their feet. "I know my dad's not a mowing fanatic, but I didn't think it looked like a '_jungle'."_ Drake studied the two ducklings. The other child was standing nearby; a grateful expression and glasses on his face, wearing a green shirt and a backpack. "So I came from the house, and you came from...?"

Gosalyn went suddenly pink in the face.

"Or should I just check the police database for the name 'Gosalyn', perhaps filed under 'trespassing'?" Drake asked smugly.  
"He-ey!" Gosalyn argued, "I'm a good girl, I'll have you know! We're kids; we're supposed to be curious."  
Drake chuckled; she was adorable. "Come in the kitchen, I'll get you kids a drink. Exploring's thirsty work."

Drake turned away heading back to the house.  
_"I-don't think we should trust him, Honker."_  
"Come on, Gosalyn."  
_"We don't even know his name."_

"It's Drake." He answered the unasked question from over his shoulder. "Welcome to Mallard Manor."

* * *

Drake got the kids some juice from the fridge and went to pick out what was still okay from his crashed box at the doorway.

"Gee, I'm sorry." Gosalyn watched him, cringing. "I was only playing."  
"That's okay, Gosalyn." Drake answered in a steady voice. "Besides, it's only pickles." He chuckled, "I'd be a little more upset over dropping my book box, and still." He came and faced her at the table a bit more serious, "I'd be '_really'_ upset if I hadn't caught you in time."

Gosalyn looked quietly down at her drink.

* * *

Drake went and started piling the undestroyed jars and bottles into the sink, thinking about the people living in the area and who these kids must belong to. "I think I've seen you around the neighbourhood, Honker... M...Muddlefoots?"  
"Yes sir."

"Gosalyn, you just moved here? is it the house on Avian Way next to Honker's or...?"  
"Yeah; a month ago."  
"I'm glad you picked today to do the obstacle course. I don't mind you playing, but don't do it without me around, okay? My dad's strong, but he's not fast like I am." He started rinsing the glassware in the sink.

"Are you like an Olympic runner or something?"  
"Pfft." Drake scoffed, "Nah, I'm just a fitness fanatic." Drake wiped off the water and started putting the jars into the fridge. "Stay fit, stay fed, stay sharp."  
"Why are you putting stuff in a fridge that's already full?" Gosalyn asked, incessantly curious.  
"I was living in my apartment for a while." Drake answered.

"Did it get dangerous, like all the bad guys find you too easy?"

Drake froze, kids play-acting. "Yeah-it was a bit lousy, really, but mostly it's because I got married last night. There's no-oo way I'm letting her near that ticking time bomb. I mean, it has a server, and a nice bookshelf, a decent washing machine. Comfy bed. Plenty drawer space. New carpet. Comfy lounge. I guess what I'm saying is; I belong here with my family."

"Congratulations, sir!" Honker stated.  
"Yeah!" Gosalyn chimed with a smile.

* * *

Finished putting away into the fridge, Drake ignored the disaster in the doorway for the moment. Instead, he grabbed a glass of juice for himself and sat down with the kids. "So have you figured out what you did wrong yet, Gosalyn?"  
"-Shouldn't play on other peoples properties." She said in a low sour grumbling tone.

"I thought that was a given." He shook his head, "two things, specifically I noticed. One, listen to Honker; he's looking out for you. Two, learn how to fall. If you're going to climb something, think about the ways you can fall off it first." He put his phone on the table for an example. "Go-cart." He gestured to it, "It's a box on four wheels. You can fly off any side. If a wheel pops off you're out of there."

"You should check the wheels before getting in." Honker stated matter-of-factly.  
Drake eyed Honker. "...Know any _'bullies',_ kid?"  
Honker's face showed a streak of pain.  
"Yeah." Drake frowned, "That. So train your brains. Fall first, climb after. You want to call your parents, kids? Let them know you're at Mallard Manor and you're okay." He unlocked his phone on and put it in front of Honker, the reliable one. "I'm just going to clean that up before it _'really'_ starts to stink," he explained, referring to the box and the smell of pickle vinegar and mustard that was slowly rising from it.

* * *

Drake put the damp box in the bin outside and went to the closet fetching the broom and bucket. When he got back to the kitchen the kids had vanished from view.

He didn't feel like they'd left though; they were certainly the kind to stick around for a good bye. "After the McDuck kids these two are like church mice!" Drake mused on the stark contrast.

After putting away the cleaning equipment in the cupboard in the garage, Drake stood in the hall, listening for the sound of rustling, tiny foot steps and murmurs.

_"Don't make any sudden moves!"_ Gosalyn's tense voice was quiet.

Drake stepped past them into the piano room and went to pet mildly curious Toby. He looked up at Gosalyn with Honker hiding, peeking out behind her. "Toby, this is Gosalyn and Honker."

Gosalyn came and timidly petted Toby after him. "Do you get scared of _'anything',_ Mr. Mallard?" She asked in wonder.  
"All the time." He shrugged, "It's just a hoop you jump through. It's important too. You have to know it's dangerous, so you can figure how to make it not dangerous. Right, Honker?"  
"Uh, well, I-..."

Drake got up and put his hand on Honker's shoulder in reassurance. "Come on, you two." He led them back into the hall.

* * *

Gosalyn quietly closed the door shut tight with a click behind her.

_"Alright!"_ She rounded on him, instantly transforming into a tiny exploding ball of fury. _"What's the big idea and why is this place so weird!? _We were expecting ghosts and chopped up hundred year old bodies, not a gargantuan house cat that _could fit your head it's mouth!"  
_"Toby's my mum's pet." Drake answered calmly, "She's a stage performer; the audience loves seeing him."

_"Yeah, and what about all the candles?"_ She pointed to the lounge room where Morgana had put the things from the wedding ritual onto the mantelpiece. "You're trying to raise untold demons from untold dimensions; go on, _admit it!_"  
"I got married last night;" Drake answered simply, "my wife's a witch. If she was evil, for sure I'd know about it by now." He pushed off the distracting thought of her, "Next question?"

"Alright." Gosalyn took the challenge and went to point at the _Darkwing: First Darkness_ poster. "This movie doesn't exist. They never finished it. They don't sell posters for movies that don't exist! _How come you have one?!_"  
Drake raised an eyebrow at her glaring expression. "Wow, you're intense."

"If this movie came out I would know about it!" She thumbed to herself. "Because '_I_' would've watched it!"  
Drake sighed in mild amusement and went to the poster, pointing closely at his leading credit for her.

"Oh... You're an actor?" Gosalyn's fury became apologetic.

Drake smiled at her, tellingly tapping onto the poster stand collecting his other movies together. "I've retired." He gestured dramatically to the Darkwing poster, "That's my last role." He looked at the poster of his own shadow, staring out, backed by the cityscape.

**"I am Darkwing Duck."**

* * *

Drake blinked, looking to them. "It's getting on a bit. You kids should probably get home to your parents. You can always come visit another day. I'll walk you back; make sure you stay safe. Come on." He led them to the front door.

Gosalyn followed reluctantly after Honker.

"Um-How come you have such an old house, Mr Mallard?" Gosalyn asked in a much sweeter tone, stopping him at the door. She didn't want to leave.

Knowing at once it was a losing argument, Drake closed the door. "I was just born to it." He shrugged, "There's a lot of history here, and so long as we keep the stories going, my grand-kids will probably never leave either. How about you, Gosalyn? Your family?"

"Nah, my parents are pretty boring." Gosalyn looked away from him.  
"Nobody's _'boring'."_ Drake disagreed.  
"But grandpa's an inventor. He's a lot of fun to play with, kinda like you."

Drake smiled. "Wish I was that smart." He gazed at her. They were all standing at the front door but Gosalyn wasn't leaving. She was after something. He waited for it, folding his arms.  
"So-oo..." She hesitated, clearly an attempt to be sneaky. Adorable. "If you're Darkwing Duck, then you've got to be working on like, a top secret mission or gadget or something!"

"Darkwing Duck's not a spy in the show." Drake countered.  
"And your name's not Jim Sterling." She returned.  
"Starling." Drake automatically corrected.  
"And logically," Honker joined her, "If Darkwing knew S.H.U.S.H. existed, he'd go join them."  
"For sure."

Drake glanced over the banister to the first glimpse of his enshrined fanaticisms. Between Honker the geek and Gosalyn the action hero he did not stand a chance. He rubbed his head. "Maybe I should get some professional help or something." He shrugged, "You two aren't going home till I show you the coolest thing I have, are you?"

Gosalyn crossed her arms determinedly and planted her feet apart.

* * *

He chuckled and led them to the garage.

"Keen gear!" Gosalyn exclaimed, jumping up on top of the motorbike's seat.

"Oh, it-it doesn't work... not yet. Getting there." Drake mentioned tentatively.  
It didn't bother Gosalyn. "Wo-ow! Come on, Honker!"  
Honker hesitated.  
"How're you going to fall, Honker?" Drake mentioned, "Got a plan?"

There was a look of dawning realisation on Gosalyn's face as Honker climbed up onto the seat.

Drake chuckled. "So how do you kids know about Darkwing Duck? You are way too young to remember him from TV."

_"I"_ Gosalyn declared with propriety, "Am Gosalyn Waddlemire. I'm a B-grade movie and horror action sci-fi genre critic."  
Drake hissed, playfully, "Oo, a critic. I'll remember to watch out for you."  
"I was waiting to see the movie." Gosalyn explained, "If the movie was any good I'd go back to watch the show."

"Wow you had to remove all the electrical cabling, sir." Honker spoke up, "That must've been a pretty bad overload."  
"Uh, yeah." Drake sighed, "It's really funny, you know, kids. When I bought this bike, I was all like, 'oh, sure, I can fix that. It's just electronics. There are books on it. There's not a thing I can't learn!" He stopped, watching them. "I've been at this for months now. I just haven't had the time for it."

"It takes years for some of Grandpa's inventions to start working." Gosalyn responded. "You shouldn't take it so hard."  
"I know..." Drake sighed, "It's just my job that was getting to me. I don't think I was doing a bad job but they thought that."  
_"Who cares what other people think!"_ Gosalyn raged.  
"Gosalyn." Drake frowned, "Crimes are always done by people. If you don't care about what they think, you won't know where or when the next wheel is going to come off your cart... So why am I not good enough? And how do I become better? Or is it genuinely not me and I'm an innocent bystander of a bigger situation that I haven't uncovered?"

* * *

Drake shrugged it off and smiled, "Come on, I've been monologuing enough. Time to go home. Let's get back into that sunlight." He watched the kids jump down and then went and opened the garage door. He turned back to regard the motorbike. He sighed and shut the door after them.

"What's wrong, Mr Mallard?"

He turned and started down the drive with the kids, "One, put the electronics back into the bike. I've got all the pieces now. Two, program each of the features so the bike can basically drive itself."  
"That doesn't sound like a problem." Gosalyn commented.  
"Always think in plans, Gosalyn."  
"Do you need help, sir?" Honker asked.

"Yeah, more patience please, Honker!" Drake exclaimed, "Got any spare patience hanging around in your backpack? He joked, "I just want to get on that bike and go."

* * *

Drake paused on the corner to Avian Way, noticing the sunset going on up the road. "Oh great." That wasn't going to go down well. Gosalyn and Honker got to their mailboxes.

"See you around, kids." He said lightly.  
"Oh, you're not coming to say hi?" Gosalyn begged. "My parents would love to meet you."  
"Uh, no. I think I've made a bad enough impression on them already by bringing you back so late. Take care kids."

He turned and started walking back to his house as the darkness gathered.

* * *

Drake got to the gate and looked up the long drive to the manor. Abandoned?

"Kids." He chuckled, "honestly adorable."


	9. Diplomacy

**Of Toys and Curses**

* * *

**30**

**Diplomacy**

* * *

Drake was halfway up the drive when an inexplicit feeling crept through him. He turned around to the road. There was a very fancy, high powered black V8 car parked by the power pole. A ViperQuack? It hadn't been there earlier when he'd left with the kids.

Someone had tracked him down.

Not like it was hard, though. Drake tried to ease the tension he was feeling.

Great job; house sitting, Drake. Toby was locked in the piano room, excellent. And everyone was coming back anytime now. Perfect.  
Negaduck? Ratcatcher.  
Steelbeak? Right car, wrong colour; it'd be white or red.

He'd wrastled a few other criminals, but there was no one else that had this level of interest to apply this level of intelligence.

* * *

Drake grinned at the door handle. He opened it up. "Hello, Agent Hooter." He said casually. "Haven't got past the hall yet?"

The elder agent appeared from behind the stairs.

Hooter cleared his throat apologetically, "It wasn't locked."  
"Most criminals know enough folklore to stay away from this place."  
"Uh. Believe what you want, but I am not against you!"  
Drake paused, "That's... not quite a sentence that works."

Hooter sighed. "I'm at an impasse with you."  
"Yeah; so?"

Hooter was silent.

"You've seen my manuals?" Drake gestured to the display.  
"Please don't preach at me, sir." Hooter said in a small begging voice.  
Drake smirked at that and went left of the stairs to stand in front of the set, looking up at the assembly photo.

"I have wondered quite a lot, how much control you had over the Ripperjack."  
Drake blinked at the loaded question. "What do you think?"  
"You are just a duck. We know its track record with ducks... I've spent a lot of time considering it. You did, have more control. More than SQ-how were you able to keep so much of your integrity?"

"Because I've got something she doesn't have." Drake shrugged.  
"What is that?"  
"Have you seen our piano room?"  
"No. I confess I rather got stopped at seeing an unmarked top secret building on display in someone's home."  
"Yeah, I just realised I might have some issues needing fixing." Drake went and opened the door to the piano room.

Freed, Toby jumped out, landing on top of Hooter before dashing into the kitchen and out the side door.

Drake helped him up.  
"My word!"  
"Yeah, well, if a little girl wants a door closed, you're not going to argue."  
"That thing is dangerous!"  
"Says the guy who flipped a jeep on purpose and dived into a ravine before the encampment exploded!"  
"I was a very young man then!"  
"So that's your excuse? Age?"

Hooter flinched. "What do you suppose it is?"  
"Oh, I know what it is. And the stewing you did over it too."

* * *

Drake made after Toby into the kitchen. He picked up his phone. There was a text message.

_'We'll bring you something back.'_

"You know, I don't think that's 'really' fair, mum." He said vocally to the text message. "She is _'my'_ wife." He typed _'ok'_ and put the phone down. "I'm glad they're getting along." He smiled lightly.

Hooter stepped in the door. _"You have no possible idea-!"_  
_"No, I do not!"_ Drake stopped him. "Know how it felt. Sir."

Put off, Hooter looked at the phone in Drake's hands. "I wasn't aware you were married."

"Oh, I'm definitely married. We filed..." He stopped, eyeing Hooter wryly. "Never mind." He put his phone back down and went to the fridge, "Can I get you a drink?"

"I'm glad you're alive."  
Drake stopped. "I know."  
"I've never been very good with filing."  
"I know." Drake said quietly.

"I'm under no illusion that it isn't my fault. I assigned her those missions. I sent her after those vampires, I sent her after the Ripperjack; I had to do something to help her. I convinced myself you were a safe carrier... I..."

"Protocol 1."  
"File everything."  
"It gets it out of your head and into the computer. It would've told you to apply protocol 15. Or apparently 14."  
"I couldn't risk you saying no!" Hooter sighed, putting his face in his hands. "I know! But you suffered two days, she was going to suffer an eternity! You and I are nothing for the briefness we live compared to her."

"Bringing us to protocol 5."  
"If I didn't do something then that was it for her. I couldn't keep her case closed, a sufferance for eternity that 'I' caused! Not one count, but three! A comedy of errors! I swore never to make that mistake again..." he had tears in his eyes. "Then I did it to you." He sighed "I can't even think what I was thinking now."

"Good!" Drake snapped on that. "Now you need to _'give up'_... and move on! S.H.U.S.H. deals with the most complex criminal and trans-political cases on the planet. Without protocols they're nothing but a box of Christmas crackers. Pop one open and see a different toy fall out. Pop enough open and you start seeing the same toy. I mean, _'I'm'_ not perfect. I just stole a whole bunch of electronics from F.O.W.L. so I can get some traction on my patrols."

"You... stole from F.O.W.L.?"

"It wasn't a big deal. I'd already stolen the diamond from them. I was on my way out at the time."  
"They were using it in their whatever-it-was-this-time machine?"  
"Yes... why?"  
"They always put that machine at the most secure spot in their facility."  
"It wasn't that secure."  
"Then you've been rused by a decoy."

Drake shook his head. "No. I'll show you."

* * *

Drake led him into the garage and brought down the rag bundle. "Look at these." He showed Hooter the circuit boards, "You want to talk valuable? This bike is going to be the best darn crime-fighting machine on the planet."

"How did they get those?"

"By us not having a crime-fighting machine like this one's going to be!" Drake responded. "I mean, no expert on the last thirty years, but F.O.W.L. does have precedence for developing their own technology. This isn't ordinary electronics. This is supercomputer technology... and it's clean!"

Drake wrapped the bundle up again and put it away.

"What do you mean?"  
"I mean that only you and I know it came from F.O.W.L.. It's safe, it's here, it's going in the bike."  
"Drake, it may have been stolen."  
"Yeah. By me from F.O.W.L.."  
"Drake, you're being deliberately short-sighted!"

"Don't you call me-!" Drake glared, breathe. "Alright." He grabbed the bundle. "Let's go put them under the magnifying glass."

* * *

Drake led Hooter into the study. Baby was in a suspicious coil on the desk.

"Oh, come on, Baby. That's mine." He put down the bundle beside Baby and picked up his heavy coils, "You _'know'_ that's mine, you big meanie." Drake put Baby on the chair and his magnifying glass and desk was visible again.  
"You... that..."

"Have a look." Drake handed him the magnifying glass and unwrapped the boards. "The indent down the right bottom corner."  
Hooter looked. "F.O.W.L.."  
"It was so obvious I didn't even bother with the magnifying glass. I mean, that would be obsessive."  
"You don't think F.O.W.L. is tracking this?"

"Nope, but if Steelbeak ever sees my bike in action he's going to turn red and blue in the face over it." Drake chuckled. "Oh boy."  
"You've met Steelbeak."  
"Yeah, he's a great guy. I can see why they put him in charge of operations. He's a great boxer, too! Can't wait to fight him again." He put the circuit boards back into the bundle. "Oh, no, Baby, you're not getting these." He put them in the drawer and locked it. He then waved the key at Baby. "Now what you gonna do? Nyah!"  
Baby stuck his tongue out at him.  
"You know that innocent routine only works on mum."

"Fantasy."  
Drake frowned at Hooter. "You're saying I can't read my brother, or people generally?"  
Baby hissed at Hooter.  
Drake turned, "Oh, thank you, Baby. It's okay." Drake stroked Baby's head.

Hooter left the room.

* * *

Drake followed after him, closing the door behind. "Sir, you're supposed to be _'good'_ at diplomacy."

Hooter sighed weakly. "It seems like you are. Those are very good acting skills."  
"Diplomacy and infiltration."  
"What ever are you going to do with such a combination? Sneak in behind enemy lines and talk some sense into them?"  
"And what, your combo makes more sense? Talk someone to death?"  
"You are very good at doing that, sir!"

Drake smirked. "Thank you."

"You actually got along with the Ripperjack? That thing-!"  
"Not in me it didn't!"  
"Why, you arrogant-!"  
"Am I? Really? **Because you don't look dead to me.**"

Hooter flinched and shrank back on Drake's delivery. "Light, frivolity and then a forward pitch into darkness. Headlong, hurtling..." He swallowed.

Drake gazed at him.

"I think I finally see your strategy."  
"Really?"  
"Know your enemy. Then terrify him senseless. You knew I was afraid of the Ripperjack... Tell me, what happened here?" Hooter brushed past him. "The spear's been moved. The dust is scattered."

"I have spent practically every day and every night on some S.H.U.S.H. related business to possibly even remember dusting was a thing." Drake said defensively. "Then I woke up late, filed papers that you don't care about, packed boxes and came back here to spend the rest of the day babysitting two adorable ducklings to end up talking to you about enemy profiling and how you're not getting it... actually, it's been a very nice day." He considered to himself.

Hooter glared back at him. "This house is heritage listed. At the time of original construction, this hall was an archway between the foundations of Mallard Castle and not, in fact, a room at all. The land of this entire suburb was gifted to Sir Quackmire Mallard by the king of St Canard province himself, earning it the name 'Mireham'. Over the centuries the castle was rebuilt and expanded in the style relevant to the era that the addition was made.  
"If I hazard a guess without the benefit of carbon dating, the spear and the armour are likely the oldest antiquities in this house, pre-dating the castle's construction. The fact that such an old thing was removed from its stand poses an important question as to how serious the matter was."

Drake stared at him. S.H.U.S.H. was after him for his information on F.O.W.L.? So then he had actually been the first person to find them? He got the answers right; if only he wasn't so darn slow at everything!

"The spear?"

"Just a vampire last night. He was a bit upset. He's fine now. Also it's called a lance but you got the date right. Sir Quackmire used it to rescue the king's daughter."  
"I couldn't remember the word. I'm more into the western time period of history."

Drake gave a sober smile. "During that time, the outlying western suburbs of St Canard were springing up. People wanted a space to call their own and they took to the drier hills to get it. Ranchers, miners, colonials and outlaw bandits lived in those far out places. Tough times made for rough living; more blood sweat and tears went into the place than he even thought he'd had in him. For a small tip of the hat and two simple words: 'Howdy, Sheriff', he knew he'd made the right call to help these people."

Hooter smiled back at him.

"I have a mission to the F.O.W.L. installation tonight-."  
"No." Drake cut him off sharply.  
"You're refusing a mission, why?" Hooter frowned in surprise.  
Drake exclaimed, "What rational motive do I have to go to F.O.W.L.?"

Hooter shrank back. "I apologise for my presumption." He bowed lightly and quietly left out the front door.

Drake sighed as the door closed. He rubbed his head. "Anyone else want to answer? Anyone?" His grandfather's armour glinted back at him in the hall light.

"Got to eat." He went into the kitchen for an apple.


	10. Toy Armageddon

**Of Toys and Curse**

* * *

**31**

**Toy Armageddon**

* * *

With traffic lights to shuffle the traffic, Hooter's head-start was nothing. Drake stopped his car a couple intersections off and used his grapple to get to the roof of the F.O.W.L. building just ahead of Hooter. He knocked out the sniper just as Hooter came into scope.

"Well, that's not a great start..." Drake, now dressed in his tailored eggman uniform and helmet, frowned. He roped himself down to the ground after Hooter entered through the door.

* * *

As an eggman, Drake shadowed Hooter through the F.O.W.L. complex.

At junction 7, Hooter made it past the guard but his timing was off and the guard started to turn. Drake raced to the guard's opposite side, making him turn that way instead.  
"Hi, I'm Duran, new here, your name?"  
"Steve."  
"Great name; Steve." Drake dashed hurriedly, "Just quickly, I was just wondering, what do you reckon the true secret to making great spaghetti is?"  
"The right spices." Steve answered.  
"Ah, right!" Drake stepped off, "Thanks, the weird things that pop into your head when you're on patrol, huh?"

"Ha, you're telling me." Steve replied in understanding amusement as Drake left.

Drake caught up just as Hooter walked in through the door to the central hub.

"But..." Drake's heart clenched. "You didn't just... not look..."  
There was noise on the other side of the door.  
"I'm dead." He shoved through the door to help Steelbeak pin down the spy.

* * *

Drake trained his weapon on Hooter, allowing the eggmen in the room to regain normality of the situation.

"Hey, good job." Steelbeak commended him. "Tie him up."  
"Piece of cake." Drake replied gruffly.

Drake tied Hooter with a slipknot and eased himself with the eggmen formation. What was left of them after their fight with Hooter wasn't too much. Between the injured and their support, it briefly ended up just Steelbeak and Drake left in the room with Hooter.  
Drake felt ill. "Don't think tying him's a good idea, boss."  
"Eh?" Steelbeak looked up at him from intensely studying his phone for a brief moment before turning to Hooter. "According to Intel," Steelbeak moved to stand in front of Hooter. "S.H.U.S.H. busted their St Canard director down to field agent just a few days ago. Love to know the juicy gossip as to why."

"I didn't file my papers on time."

Something snapped in Drake's head. He gave Steelbeak a sharp disabling hit sending him to the floor with a groan.  
Hooter undid the ropes on him and stepped up beside Drake and the console. "Why didn't you say you wanted to employ a shadowing strategy?"  
"Too dangerous." Drake scowled.  
"I could've killed you!" Hooter disabled the machinery.  
"I know; that's why I didn't tell you!" Drake argued back.  
"We're supposed to be on the same side."

**"We are not!" **Drake retorted, "**You** are a S.H.U.S.H. agent and **I** am an eggman. Steve is at junction 7, do a better job at avoiding him this time, and for goodness sake when you get outside there's two snipers, not just one!"  
Hooter shrank away from him. "What will you achieve by staying here?"  
"Not a whole lot considering I'll be dead!" Drake replied in annoyance. "Look; you've got what you need; so just shoot me and go."

"Good heavens why would I shoot you?" Hooter looked appalled.  
Drake gestured to the room. "Middle of a F.O.W.L. installation? Can't think of a better place to dispose of me."  
"Why would I shoot you!" Hooter repeated, getting salty.  
"I'm corruptible." Drake answered in quiet bitterness, "Like the Green Ganderino was."  
_"The Green Ganderino was S.H.U.S.H.'s best agent!"  
_Drake flinched. "You shot your best agent?!"  
_"That was a disabling shot!_ The others took him down with tranquilizers."

"Not according to the autopsy reports."  
_"I did not kill the Green Ganderino!"_ Hooter exclaimed, "Doctor Vykes falsified those reports."  
"Why would he falsify?"  
"Because Vykes developed new neurological examination methods and wanted a guinea pig so he could test and refine them." Hooter gritted. He looked down to Steelbeak.

"Why didn't you contest? You allowed false reports to get, and stay, on the file?"  
"Cross-examining his reports served a valid purpose only to the point that he died; afterwards, it only served _'my'_ purpose. As you may not have guessed, I do not have any issue with my self image or I would not have handled my demotion and therefore would not have been put back on field assignment." Hooter frowned, "Doctor Vykes' last words he ever spoke were telling me to '_file and forget about the matter_'. He would've walked back to the morgue and..." He stopped. "It was the ultimate betrayal for Ganderino. I couldn't blame him if he killed every last one of us. And that's why S.H.U.S.H. security is so tight."

"Not half as tight as F.O.W.L.'s." Steelbeak gritted, getting slowly up off the ground, phone in hand. There was an almighty rush of mechanical whirring starting up behind the walls of the room. "Better start running, boys; it's Toy Armageddon down here." He cackled weakly.

* * *

Left, duck, right, swerve, dodge, jump.

A moment alone together in a passage, Hooter caught his breath. "We've diverted."  
"That's okay." Drake answered, breathing easily. "F.O.W.L.'s not S.H.U.S.H.; there's a logical architectural design to this place that transcends its current tenants."  
"What does that mean?"

"This place has a cafeteria. All we need to do is find the nearest restrooms and they can't be far away from any one location. From there it's always an obvious path to the cafeteria. We know our way from there."

The sound of whirring buzz blades grew louder again. "Here's another one..." Hooter remarked, "Jumping over him will turn us around again."  
"What are you thinking?"  
"Is there a way we can functionally disable it?"

"We're deep in an enemy installation teeming with killer robots and you want to study the innards of one of them?"  
"Only if you're interested in that sort of thing. Personally, I just want to wreck it."

"Okay, that's not so hard." Drake considered briefly, "Let's try jumping on top and get those buzz saws working to our advantage."

* * *

They managed to the front door.

As Hooter caught his breath, Drake eyed off the great tank suddenly making rounds instead of eggmen. An easy miss with the dirt truck blocking the middle. "We need to go left to avoid that right hand sniper."

"We can take that contraption out." Hooter stated regarding the tank.  
"Hooter, we don't have the equipment for tanks." Drake stated, "We need to regroup, and-."  
"Yes we do." Hooter insisted.  
_"No, wait!"_

Drake chased after Hooter and ended up in a half cover position behind the dirt truck. A sniper shot went off harmlessly behind him. Hooter had ducked under the truck.  
"Hooter, what are you-."  
"I'm cutting a hole in the fuel tank. Use a grenade to distract them."  
"I don't have a grenade. You ignite that and we'll explode with it."  
"We use your grapple. We're close enough to the side fence."

_"That's too risky!"_

Hooter got up and threw the match on the ground.

Drake fired the grapple and pulled them to safety on the dirt behind the guard fence as the truck exploded. They dropped to the ground. There was a sound of fire and shrieking metal renting the air over head.

As the terrible noise faded from the echoes, Drake felt his racing heart start to slow down again. "Office. Now."

* * *

Drake took off his eggman helmet as he led Hooter into one of the agency meeting rooms and shut the door.

_"You're suicidal!"_ He exclaimed. "I can't work with you if you're going to be like that!"  
"I'm not suicidal, it was a perfectly legitimate play!"  
_"I didn't make the gas gun; Doctor Bellum did!_ She didn't make it to work, she designed it to fail! Since she was working for you at the time, _I assumed you would know!_"

Drake ripped the door open, glaring back at Hooter. "If you're going to insist on roping me in to helping you, then you need to build enough time into your team strategies to find another option in case the first one fails. Until I have time to find replacement parts, the gas gun is nothing but a toy. It's great to have and it's helpful. But no grenades and plenty of time in case the ejector assembly jams and an alternative in case the trigger mechanism snaps a shoe. You rework the anti-tank strategy. Incendiary is your thing; if I stick around I'm only going to tell you _'no'_ a hundred times, so let's skip that bit and get to the part where it works. I'm going home to calm down. I didn't get this far in my life just to be '_shown out the door_' by some high ranking prop builder!"


	11. Dawn

**Of Toys and Curses**

* * *

**32**

**Dawn**

* * *

_**Knock knock**_

The reverberating echo resonated against the stones of the exterior wall of the bedroom. The window pane above the bed shook.

"What's that noise?" Morgana's voice mumbled sleepily from beside him.  
"That's... the sound... of the door knocker..." Drake yawned and dragged himself out of bed to go find some day wear out of the closet.  
"I don't remember it being so horrendous... Oh, we're right above the door." She realised.

"It's only bad when you're trying to sleep." Drake pulled his clothes on. "This room has heard every door knock for the past five hundred years."

_**Knock knock**_

"It certainly knows what it's talking about." Reflexively, Morgana grabbed his pillow and shoved it over her head.

* * *

Bleary eyed and just dressed, Drake reached the front door before the knocker went off again.

He took note of the man's attire. A trench coat, a flash camera, a hat. Old brown coloured clothes and old black shoes. "I'm sorry, there are no ghosts in this house."

"Castle, technically by the original design." The man pushed through the doorway persistently.

Caught off-guard by this knowledge, Drake suddenly realised he'd let the man in. Darn, he was not a morning person; he needed to wake up faster. "Drake... Mallard." He frowned at the man.  
"Larkis-Dovesworth-paranormal investigator-I'd thought I'd been in every old house in St Canard, but I'd never thought something this old would be found in the outlying suburbs."

"Not that outlying."  
"Of course, the king wouldn't want to have his knights too far away."  
Drake caught the off note in the man's voice as he closed the door. Medieval history was a strange topic to get suspicious about. "I'm sorry, what do you mean by that?"

"I'm just trying to piece together a bit of ancient history." The man talked at such high energy, Drake could only assume he must've been awake for two hours already.  
"At five thirty in the morning?"

"Remarkable that you still have Sir Quackmire Mallard's original armour."  
"Well, got to fill the castle with something!" Drake replied with acted enthusiasm, "Can I get you a tea?"  
"Oh, that's very kind."

* * *

In the kitchen, Drake severely stirred the tea bag through the boiling water in the pot. He needed _'all'_ the caffeine in it. He pushed the bag forcefully to the bottom with the spoon. _Red, get darker!_

Why was the Green Ganderino in his house? He was looking for revenge on S.H.U.S.H.. So he'd managed to track Hooter here? That was believable considering it'd only happened last night. How did he think Drake was going to help him? What did 'the best S.H.U.S.H. agent' want from a lowly ex-filing clerk like him? And most importantly, _why had he woken Drake at five thirty in the morning?!_

* * *

Stepping into the hall with the tea set, Drake noticed Larkis looking at his posters.  
"How about we talk in the library?" He led Larkis in, putting the tea set on the small round table.

"I had no idea you were an actor."  
"No?" Drake raised an eyebrow.  
"No..." Larkis stepped up to him, "Did you not find it..."  
Drake raised an eyebrow.  
"Well, odd. To say."  
Drake shrugged, "I have a lot of enthusiasm for people. What's off about it?"  
Larkis shook his head. "Just that it's not exactly in line with the family crest. Seems odd."

Drake looked down and served the tea. "I guess people are just more complicated than you think they are."

"It's usually the case." Larkis agreed. "I suppose that's one of the things that drives me forward. Meeting new people. Figuring them out."  
Forty years after S.H.U.S.H. and Larkis was still a private investigator. Drake eyed him as he gulped his tea. "Yeah, but at five thirty in the morning?"

"Sorry for the early rise, but dawn is the best time as the supernatural is at its weakest, and the waking world has yet to step all over the evidence. A changing of the guard, to keep in theme with the castle." He turned about, "Any secret passages in this place?"

"Not that I've found." Drake smiled back and drank his caffeine... ated tea.  
"No, really? A place this old?"  
Drake shrugged. "I grew up here. I've paced every square foot of this place." He gestured to the books. "It's all here. Out in the open."

Larkis turned, gazing at the books silently for a long time.

Drake finished his drink, slowly feeling better.

* * *

"I'm not claiming to be an expert in the field of filmography," Larkis drew the conversation back, "but I noticed you've never had any big roles."  
"Darkwing was a big role. The one on the wall." Drake countered.  
"Oh," Larkis shook his head as though his tea were suddenly bitter, "I mean your other ones. How did you find being an actor doing those parts?"

Drake frowned. This was seriously a trying conversation. "What answer are you looking for?"  
"You can't have done a good job, surely?"  
_"I thought I did!"_ Drake replied incredulously, "I don't mind getting a negative review, but for goodness sake; watch the thing first!"  
"Hmm, you thought you did..." Larkis turned away and paced to the window.

"They were B-Grade and art-house movies! And how does pulling apart my acting career help you, Ganderino?"  
Larkis stiffened at the window. "You surprise me. Your doctor didn't know who I was."

"D..." Drake swallowed, a sudden nervous feeling, _"My-'my'_ doctor?"  
"Yes, with the snipers gone, I tried getting into S.H.U.S.H. through the infirmary window. I found her standing over you... she was pretty... _Pretty close_."

Drake gulped, feeling his feathers prickle. "A-any idea what she was... _'up'_ to?"  
"Your friend in the yellow will corroborate. Hooter ordered a S.H.U.S.H. special on you."  
"I guessed he would." Drake swallowed. "You know, how far had she gone?"  
"If I say 'bi-section'...?"  
Drake flinched and looked away with a shudder. "That explains the sudden mood shifts I've been having lately... Well, at least I know _'why'_ I'm like this now." He collected himself together. There was nothing to do about it but get back up.

"You don't seem surprised he gave the order."  
"No."  
"You knew and you still put yourself in that position? Why?"  
"I ran out of alternatives." Drake answered stiffly. Grizlykoff needed the time.  
Larkis was silent.  
"Thank you for helping me." Drake said soberly, "I probably wouldn't be here if you didn't."

Larkis turned swiftly back to the window. "It sickens me."  
Drake shrugged, "Any specific part?"  
"How S.H.U.S.H. commits such atrocities on their agents."  
"Oh." Drake uttered, "Sorry, I assumed you knew for some reason. I'm not a S.H.U.S.H. agent."

"You're not?"  
"No. I was a filing clerk but I lost the job a couple days ago." He picked up the tea set and went back to the kitchen.

* * *

Drake glanced back at Larkis in the doorway.

"You're lying."  
Drake snapped and put the tea set down forcefully in the sink with a rush if anger. Breathe. Breathe.  
"Hooter would only give information on me to his most trusted agents!"  
"_Give?!_" Drake rounded on Larkis, "_Don't you give me_ 'give'! '_I_' had to reprogram their entire security net so I could break into his office for those files... _through the window!_"

"Have you read them?"  
Drake stopped. The tiger's attention had turned.  
"This is really important, Drake. Hooter took Doctor Vykes' report before I could read it."

"Unfortunately," Drake ventured, "Vykes didn't find a cure. Vykes just thought you were dead and left it at that."  
"He-didn't-kill-me!" Larkis breathed, clenching his fists, suddenly shaking.  
"No." Drake took a breathe. "According to Vykes's initial autopsy report, Hooter did."  
"What?!" Larkis was incredulous, unconsciously grabbing his right arm with his left. "That doesn't surprise me about Vykes..." Larkis stepped closer, swallowing.

Drake held his position.

"I... really need that information, Drake."  
Drake felt anxious, "I'm giving you the information, Larkis."  
"Vykes didn't spend all that time not to learn something. I need the medical report."

Drake felt a horror, "Have you spent forty years trying to break into S.H.U.S.H. just to get your own medical report? Or to assassinate the personnel?"  
"Far be it for me to sound too self-obsessed, but give me my medical report!"

Drake stopped, pressure building in his head. _"Wh-ah!"_

_"Darn it-let-it-go-it's... mine... so help me-argh!"_ Larkis fell backwards knocking back a chair on his way to the floor.

* * *

Drake moved to help him back up.

"Ugh, witch." Larkis grumbled.  
"W-what witch?" Not Morgana?  
"The one that cursed you." Larkis clawed himself up to sit down on the chair. He leaned forwards with his elbows on the table with a weary sigh.

"No, I'm not..." Drake stopped, "nobody's cursed me."  
Larkis rubbed his brow. "Evidence suggests you weren't born at the time."

_Oh, that curse. _Drake shook his head, dismissing the topic. "Did you get-?"

**Knock Knock**

There was a knock on the front door and Larkis vanished where he sat.

"I'd love you to teach me how to actually do that." Drake said in wonder to the empty space. He stood up to answer.


	12. Debriefing

**Of Toys and Curses**

* * *

**33**

**Debriefing**

* * *

"Hooter." Drake let the elder agent in, "When I said I was going home for a break, I was aiming for three days, not 'till morning'." He closed the door.

"Really." Agent Hooter turned back to him, "Being offish is no way to solve a problem."  
"I!" Drake glared at him. "Suppose not. What do you need my help for?" He asked with a scowl.  
"We can't give up; we've barely even tried. All things considered, the mission last night-."  
Drake snapped. **"I know!"** He thundered, _"I was there!"_ He turned quickly away; yet another disaster credited to _'him'_ thanks to S.H.U.S.H.'s meddling. Breathe, Drake.  
"Well, yes, and we're due for mission debriefing." Hooter finished.

Drake stopped, "Sorry, what?"

"A debriefing, you surely know what that is?"  
Drake shook his head, "No, that's just you that's needed for that."  
"All agents-."  
_"I'm starting to think you enjoy hearing me repeat myself!"_ Drake cut him off and headed to the kitchen. Do something. "I need to feed the cat." He decided. "Here, Toby. Come get your breakfast."

Drake took the meat out of the fridge. Toby clamped jaws around it and scooted outside as usual.

Hooter stepped in the doorway and Drake looked tiredly back at him.  
"Go. To your meeting; whatever."  
"I really must insist you come with me."  
"What, or you'll arrest me?" Drake rubbed his face, "When is it?"  
"It starts at seven. You have time enough to dress."  
"Great." Drake gave a weak try for enthusiasm. "Then... let me... get dressed." Drake shrugged, weakly shook his head and headed for the stairs.

"You don't look well; I think it's better if you let me give you a lift today." Hooter said after him as Drake started up the stairs.

* * *

Drake took up the stairs and shut the bedroom door behind him.

"What's the matter?" Morgana had gotten dressed. She was sitting on the seat at the dresser doing her hair. She stood up and came over.

"Where do I start?" Drake frowned quietly as he exchanged clothes for the Darkwing outfit. "It turns out the reason I've been struggling to keep control of my emotions is because I actually physically can't. I don't have it in me anymore; Doctor Bellum removed it. On _'his'_ order." He hissed quietly.

"And now S.H.U.S.H. wants to grill me because I'm the one with the information on F.O.W.L. because I'm the one who just _'had'_ to rescue Fishburn's stupid rock because I'm the one with the stupid family curse. And now he's taking me back to S.H.U.S.H. and can I say no? _No!_ Why? Because, once again, the stupid family curse won't let me. I'm trapped, tied and bound to help that corrupted pack of jackals. They're ripping me apart, Morgana. I don't know how long I've got before they actually kill me."

"Oh, sweetie." She kissed him. "I wish I could do something."  
He took her hand. "That you're here and genuinely on my side is enough." He kissed her again. "I love you." He whispered and drew away, moving to the door.

* * *

In heavy step, Drake followed Hooter to his car parked down on the side of the road.

Filing clerk. From pay grade to title on his last payslip. Couldn't they have gotten a real agent to break into F.O.W.L.? Why pick on him? Because he was the one who couldn't fight back.

"I confess I still don't know much about you." Hooter mentioned over the sound of the engine.  
"I have a hero complex so I wear the costume to perpetuate my ideals within the realm of my own control." Drake responded listlessly.  
"Oh, I meant, things you're interested in. Sport?"  
"You could just say you want to make conversation." Drake sighed. "1987 Viper Quack convertible. Top of the line sports engine, all wheel drive and you have all terrain tyres. You have a defensive driving style suggesting you may be 'some kind of secret agent spy' ready for an enemy to try to take you out on the road rather than say, a normal road hazard."  
"That is true..." Hooter replied. "Well, I know you're something of a historian."  
"That's a Mallard hazard." Drake discarded flatly.

"You really are not well." Hooter commented. "Could you have picked up something last night?"  
"Yeah, sure." Drake intoned, unfeelingly, "That'll be it."

Hooter was silent.

* * *

There was a number of agents filing into the mid sized meeting room.

Drake was even less comfortable with a large meeting. Now it was just downright public humiliation.

Across the way, Doctor Bellum was staring wide-eyed at him. Drake shook his head and lowered his gaze to the brown carpeted floor. He felt the heat of several sets of eyes watching him.

Director Grizlykoff brought them to attention and began discussing the current F.O.W.L. situation. He brought up the photographs Drake had taken of the electronics in the machine. Of course they were all his; he'd been the only one there.

"While he was rescuing the Kulux diamond, Darkwing also secured this information about the advances F.O.W.L. have made in their technology."  
"What advances?"  
"Look at the slide." Drake rebuked darkly.  
"Darkwing," Grizlykoff eased, "Perhaps you would better for explain."

Drake was obliged to stand up and go to the front. Fighting back the feeling of exasperation, he pointed at the picture. "This is super computer tech. What they're working on, is bringing high computational power into the realm of robotics."  
He was met with glassy eyed stares.  
"Like a robot playing chess but more like a super robot playing chess and poker at once."  
"So it's a robot playing chess and poker."  
"No, it's Gizmotech with AI."  
Still blank faces.  
"Has nobody heard of Gizmoduck?!" He asked incredulously.

Eyes started to blink around him.  
"They'll be unstoppable."  
"No-oo." Drake frowned. Why were they making him baby them? "You just need to make it backfire on them. Do it enough they'll start questioning their life choices as their own tech tears apart their facilities. Obviously."  
"How do you propose to do that? Just _'walk in'_ and reprogram it?" Someone said sarcastically.

"F.O.W.L. security follows basic protocols; it's an easy walk in for an infiltration expert. It only gets tricky wh-why am I still talking? Sorry." He took a seat feeling a flush of embarrassment. Ask a geek a question...

"Agent Hooter, your report from last night?"  
"Yes, when Darkwing and I tripped their system up last night it certainly did get 'tricky'. After their new toys came out to play it got highly entertaining; they even managed to drive us into an entirely new area of their facility. Fortunately Darkwing has a sixth sense about floor design and combined with his previous experience and we were out quite quickly after that. They sent a tank variety out on the grounds. I thought to take one out though it was rather ambitious given our lack of reliable equipment."

Drake nodded.

"So, in conclusion," Hooter summed up, "we have at least two viable options so far to deal with these F.O.W.L tech toys. Infiltrate and reprogram, and bring a full anti tank rocket launcher... I should say 'or' there. One doesn't generally mix the two strategies."

Drake nodded.

"You have both done excellent work." Grizlykoff stated. "We now know both of problem and have working solutions that we can implement against them."

"Sir. I can see a lot of problems here." Another agent called from the back.  
"Programming and exploding things are specialist fields."  
"Doctor Bellum," Grizlykoff asked, "you are very good at arranging things to explode. Can you please look into matter?"  
"Yes sir."  
"Darkwing, I do not know what level you have understanding of F.O.W.L. software. Do you know what would take for you to have remote reprogram?" Grizlykoff asked.  
Drake raised an eyebrow. "A... trip to Duckburg, a conversation, a day at most of programming. Then it's however long to load it onto the tasked agent's phone."  
"Our system can handle administrative matter if you can send reprogram to us."

_"Me?"_ Drake felt eyes again staring at him from all angles. "That's... _illegal._ I'm not a S.H.U.S.H. agent; I'm not even an employee." He enforced. _Curse, get the heck back to helping me!  
_

Grizlykoff shrugged, "Ah, yes, is good point, apologies. Is there S.H.U.S.H. agent in room can make program to hack roving security grid and loop specific camera and unlock specific door and window?"  
The room was silent.  
Drake froze, his eyes widening. He'd done that to help Grizlykoff! That was betrayal bringing it up now!

"Oh, sorry, I meant;" Grizlykoff carried on calmly, "any agent in room can do anything like make hostile reprogram of F.O.W.L. machinery?"  
"My team would need access to their coding system first." Doctor Bellum answered, "After that I'd say a few days to learn the language and design the override program."  
"But then your team not working on incendiary solution?"  
"No, sir. We can only do one at a time."

"I see is big problem in room." Grizlykoff stated, looking around them all.

"Sir, he's not qualified to be a S.H.U.S.H. agent!"  
"What is needed qualify agent?"  
"He has to pass the entrance exams."

"Darkwing, would you like to do entrance exams?"  
"Yes." Drake answered truthfully.  
"I-cannot-give-you-exams. Only end of year with cadets."  
"I know, sir."

"Somebody else, more sensible answer. What is needed qualify agent?"  
Agent Fishburn sighed. "Those pictures are stamped six thirty. Yes, he got the job done. But who can team-lead a guy who can't keep to hours?"  
Grizlykoff was fixed for a moment. "So you say because he keep working till job done he does not qualify to be agent even though is better than you could do?"  
"No, sir." Fishburn cringed.

"May I offer a suggestion?" Hooter spoke up.

Grizlykoff blinked away from his stare at Agent Fishburn. "I will take all suggestions from room." Grizlykoff replied, pointedly looking in every agent's direction.

"Uh, well," Hooter continued, "I know there are other factors involved, but since he has been dismissed already, we could rehire him as an independent operative. That would mean he works for S.H.U.S.H. by the case, rather than by set hours. That makes him answerable to himself and the director for his conduct."

That actually didn't sound too bad, Drake thought in puzzlement. Funny...

Grizlykoff considered, then shook his head, "Will not work unless everyone in room treat him as S.H.U.S.H. agent. Otherwise waste of his time, waste of my time and nobody is happy. Anybody disagree to make Darkwing Duck _'independent'_ S.H.U.S.H. agent?"

The room was silent.

"Agent Fishburn, disagree?" Grizlykoff looked at her.  
"No, sir."  
"Explain."  
"He... got back the diamond from F.O.W.L... that's not something a filing clerk should be doing."  
"So next time will you give him proper briefing so he does not waste time trying to redo yours and everyone else's work?"  
"Yes, sir."

"Agent Hooter, disagree?"  
"No, sir."  
"Now you explain."  
"In a death trap I can think of no better company for anyone to have than Darkwing. He is conscientious, reliable and attentive to the situation on hand and the people around him. He formulates solid strategies and never dismisses suggestions out of turn. He's a good leader. And very dedicated to S.H.U.S.H. principles. I recommend him in a heart beat."

Grizlykoff was silent, watching the room for a long moment. "Darkwing, would you accept new position as independent S.H.U.S.H. operative?"  
"Yes." Drake answered immediately.

Director Grizlykoff went and operated the computer at the front.  
"By consensus decision of agents in assembly... give authority, make Darkwing Duck independent S.H.U.S.H. agent. In favour?"

**"Aye."**

"Against?"

There was silence.

"Thank you." Grizlykoff worked the system. With a smile Grizlykoff looked at Drake, "Agent Darkwing?"  
"I'll get right on that reprogram, sir. Thank you."  
"S.H.U.S.H. assembly dismissed." Grizlykoff stated lightly.

* * *

Hooter looked at him as they stepped into the corridor after the others.

"My gosh, the colour's gone back into you." He remarked.

Drake followed Hooter back to his car.

* * *

"You tripped that system on purpose." Drake thought to bring up.

Hooter drove them out. "You didn't knock Steelbeak out. He heard every part of our conversation."  
"Well, you wanted to trip the system and he was key-master."  
"When you showed me those electronics I knew we had to keep digging."

Hooter sighed. "Aggravating to have an argument forty years after the event."  
Drake snorted, "Well, we're up to the minute now."  
"Up to the minute now." Hooter repeated. "For one who likes to plan so much, you certainly threw your lot into the case without knowing significant details."  
"The case was," Drake responded gruffly, "This guy is walking into a F.O.W.L. installation. He seems pretty confident he can do his job alone. Make sure he gets out alright."  
Hooter's response was slow. "I see. Well, thank you."

"You have a really brutal fighting style." Drake mentioned. "It genuinely felt like I was rescuing Steelbeak in there."  
"Indeed. If you'd hung around longer you'd probably have been promoted."  
Drake chuckled. "He seems like a good leader. He gives great motivational speeches... I mean, from an eggman's perspective."

Hooter sighed. "He has a keen intelligence and it's people exactly like him that make F.O.W.L. a threat."  
"Ah," Drake realised, "So he's the creative leader type."  
"I'm not sure how you can sound so indifferent." Hooter replied stiffly. "You're border-lining on being a sociopath."  
Drake frowned in disagreement, "I get that those guys are bigger than you, Hooter. But they're still people. They deserve at least that much respect."

Hooter was quiet. "You're a deliberator."  
Drake blinked, "Okay, what's the matter with that?"  
"You're enacting a jury."  
"If it's too big to fit into a police car; yeah. **Drake Mallard's reform school for the corrupted untouchables.**"

Hooter shivered. "All the same, I fear you won't get through to Steelbeak with your technique. He's distinctly A-moral."  
"Wow." Drake breathed, a whole new previously unencountered personality type. "I've met a _'lot'_ of people!"

There was a loaded silence in the car.

"But he takes the cake."  
Drake blinked, "Sorry? Cake?"  
"The end of your sentence. 'I've met a lot of people, but he takes the cake'." Hooter explained.  
Drake chuckled and shook his head, "Uh, no. I mean, maybe, but I was actually thinking of all the different people I've met in my life."

Hooter was silent.

The silence persisted.

* * *

Hooter parked the car and Drake got out.

Hooter skirted around. "Can I not conjure up any emotion from you?!" He exclaimed in quiet aggravation. "Do you reserve your temper only for me and why?"

Drake stared solemnly back at him.

Hooter cringed and shrank back. "How do you plan to take on Steelbeak?"  
"I don't know." Drake shrugged, "Maybe I can't. I feel a bit sorry for him, and I kind of like him. The most decent thing about him is he's not in S.H.U.S.H.. He's no less capable than any one of us so he easily could have chosen that path and made our lives so much worse."  
"You've got to realise that _'he's'_ not sorry. Not in anything he does."

"Oh, I realise that." Drake nodded emphatically. "But you were just asking how '_I_' felt about him."  
Hooter paused, considering. "I suppose he earns your equanimity because his history is still a blank to you whereas mine is not."  
Drake shook his head, "It's more than just that. It's like he lives in an entirely different world than us. We delineate our actions between good and bad. How does he delineate his actions?"

Hooter blinked, "That's an extraordinary thought." He stepped back to the driver's side, "You, sir, are uncategorical."  
"Have a nice day, Hooter."  
"You too. Agent Darkwing." Hooter smiled and got in his car.

As he drove off, Drake walked up to the house.

Agent Darkwing Duck.


	13. Wild Cat Videos

**Of Toys and Curses**

* * *

**34**

**Wild Cat Videos**

* * *

By the time Drake had gotten back inside the house it was nearing eight. His mother was awake and having breakfast while Morgana was deep in the property rentals section of the newspaper.

Drake looked around, odd, "Dad's still in bed?"  
Eleanor shook her head, "No, he got a page from work. He's been gone since four."  
"Oh." Drake frowned, "Must be pretty far off though. I haven't noticed any smoke."  
"North Plains. The wind's working against them." His mother nodded, "They're pulling staff from the neighbouring states to help with relief."

* * *

With that sobering thought in mind, Drake retold the highlights of the meeting over his breakfast.

"Oh, I'm so glad for you, honey." His mother congratulated.  
"Definitely a victory to celebrate." Morgana declared.  
"I was thinking about the competition matter." He looked to Morgana. "You've had a look at a lot of restaurants in St Canard; how about we visit a restaurant that we're not competing with?" He looked to his mother.

"Oh," His mother realised he was asking her as well, "I think I'll pass this time, Duckburg's quite a trip and I've only just done it. But you two go ahead."

* * *

Drake texted Fenton pressing vital importance and promised to buy him lunch. Fenton gave a positive reply. Drake changed clothes back to everyday wear. He came back downstairs, collected the electronic boards from the locked desk into the family briefcase. Drake put it in the hall before the internal garage door and headed back to the kitchen.

There was a knock on the door just as he reached the doorway. Morgana looked up, catching his gaze. "This is the morning that everyone calls." He said.  
"Apparently so." She replied from over the newspaper and stood up. "I'll put the kettle on."

* * *

Drake turned back and opened the door, silently inviting the couple inside; a redheaded woman in business clothes, an early balding man in a navy polo-shirt that said 'XO Engineering'. Gosalyn, in her school clothes, followed sheepishly after them.

The woman rounded on Drake. _"What are you, some kind of-!"  
"Jane!"_ The father drew her back quiet but firmly, "putting the cart before the horse, there."  
"Sorry." Mrs Waddlemire threw out tersely in Drake's direction.  
"I understand you're very upset," Drake frowned at the pair. "How about some tea, Mr and Mrs Waddlemire? Gosalyn, why don't you show your parents the library?"

* * *

Morgana stared at him, bug eyed.  
["What did you do?!"] She asked sotto voce as she set the milk jug and cups on the tray.  
["I have no idea!"] Drake replied in equally quiet mystification. "I gave them juice, I talked with them, they looked around a bit, then I took them home. It wasn't that after sunset when I got them back, but... that's all I can think it was."

* * *

Drake stepped into the library, Morgana carrying the tea set. "Mr and Mrs Waddlemire, please, allow me to introduce my wife, Morgana Mallard."  
"How do you do." Morgana said politely.  
"Gosalyn's been telling us you're newly married." The mother stated.  
"Congratulations." The father said in a more jovial tone.

"You work in the engineering industry, don't you, Mr Waddlemire?"  
"Yes... call me George."  
Drake smiled. "I'm in civic services. Morgana's looking at starting a new restaurant."

Morgana served out the tea to the guests.  
Gosalyn was looking very pasty and sorry in the corner by the window as Morgana handed her cup of very milky tea and a biscuit. "Thank you, Morgana."

"We should probably..." George frowned.  
Drake nodded. "Gosalyn came here thinking this house was abandoned. In that case, she didn't know 'who' was living here. That's the problem when you're adventuring out in the world. Moving to a new school. Starting a new job. You meet new people that you don't know anything about. You never know who you're going to meet."

Jane frowned, "While I agree, I'm not sure how this relates to you putting wild flights of fantasy into my daughters head. She's a very excitable child."

Drake raised an eyebrow. Gosalyn had seemed very normal to him and he'd basically talked about go-carts the whole afternoon.

"Mr Mallard, I don't mean to spoil my daughter's fun. But how is she supposed to settle down to do her homework when she'd too busy watching wild cat videos? What possible practical use can she get out of that in her life as an adult?"

So thinking of Toby instead of doing her homework. Judging by the level of exasperation, homework was an ongoing battle.

Drake frowned. "Understanding what motivates a dangerous animal is the first step to understanding why and where people go wrong. I wouldn't normally stress about this, Mrs Waddlemire, but your daughter could've found anyone in this place. She could find anyone anywhere. Grades mean nothing if she's not safe first and she _'knows'_ that..."

He paused, watching them. "How can she tell if that new guy she just hired into the executive committee has his own agenda or not? How about boyfriends? Everyone's a different fruitcake; big cats are just one of the basic ingredients. Whatever job your daughter gets she'll be dealing with people."

Jane frowned, "People skills. I didn't see that."

"Is she getting practical self defense classes?" Drake changed the subject slightly.  
"No," George frowned, glancing over at Gosalyn.  
"What about Junior Woodchucks?"  
"Look, Mr Mallard, don't you tell us how to-."  
"Quack Fu-Shinqua-army cadet training-animal handling-practical psychology-gymnastics-archery?" Drake rattled off in question.

Jane swallowed, "She's getting hockey and baseball training."  
"That's fitness coordination and teamwork. She needs more." Drake shook his head, "Let her come over; I'll teach her." He finished simply.  
"We can't afford that."  
"I'm not charging." Drake said, put out.  
"We can't take your charity." George frowned.

"This house wasn't raised by money, Mr Waddlemire." He gestured emphatically to the house around them. "It was raised on goodwill. This house is a place that people come to when they need help. Talking to you makes it obvious to me that your daughter really 'does' need my help. It's my honour-bound duty to her, to myself, this house, my ancestors; everything that I am to make sure she gets it." Drake answered seriously, "Plus anyway; I love her company. You have an adorable child." Drake shrugged, folding his arms. "It's nice to say 'I'm happy to help' and feel 100% genuine about it once in a while."

"Thank you." Mrs Waddlemire blushed.

"My job's changed to 'on call', so if I'm out during the day on the weekend I'll text you to save her a disappointing walk." He finished casually, looking over at Gosalyn with a slight smile. "I'll be more prepared from now on so I won't get her back so late again."  
"Yes." Jane stated, "Most appreciated if you could do that. Apparently the reason was 'too much excitement'."  
Drake nodded with a chuckle, "I grew up here and I'm still discovering new things in this place."

"Come on Gosalyn sweetie, time for school."

Drake saw them off at the door.

* * *

["Smooth recovery."] Morgana said quietly behind him. ["Very sneaky."]

He turned to her and grabbed her down for a kiss. "I just need a fresh notebook and we'll head off."


	14. Duckburg

**Of Toys and Curses**

* * *

**35**

**Duckburg**

* * *

Morgana was enjoying her day so far. She had gotten to spend two hours in a captivating discussion with her husband. They'd had a detailed discussion about their own experiences with study. Morgana worked better at school, Drake worked better at home; as far as disasters were concerned, two hours were not enough to retell them all.

After being introduced to Fenton Crackshell, Morgana excused herself from the research labs. While the rest of the lab had its curiosities, the topic for today's discussion was electronics and, while it was good to her as a principle, Morgana could not help but feel the onset of boredom at the depth the men talked.

Morgana took to exploring the levels. McDuck was a most distinguished and successful business owner. She could surely learn something from this building, if not its other personnel.

* * *

Stepping out of the lift on the top level, Morgana looked back over her recent entries in her notebook. She'd started by drawing a vertical line and noted the room titles as she'd found them.

There seemed some lateral arrangement in business functions. Marketing had an office. This was essentially an administration building and it looked every part.

Having at last reached the top, an incredible sense of boredom overtook her. Morgana looked at the sunlight on the floor of the lift reception and crossed over to the window. Across the water, the entire central spread of Duckburg could be seen amidst beautiful lush green canopies. The window pane showed up the colours crystal clear.

"Must get these regularly cleaned..." Morgana paused, thinking of the dusty and brine encrusted windows on the ocean side of Castle Macawber. Thinking of it now filled her with a kind of dreary monotony. Mallard Manor made no such garish overtones and the light shone in clear through the windows. The difference between the two castles were like night and day.

The top floor foyer of the Money Bin was decorated simply like the others. With how the potted ferns, rug and the small side table were arranged with the sitting chairs, the area made a very good first impression on a visitor.

Morgana recalled the other levels. Before she'd seen things but she hadn't made note of them.  
"I'm terrible at this. I'll have to start again." She shook her head and sat down in the nearby sitting chair, making better notes of the setting.

These were the sorts of things that appealed to ducks and she had well and truly jumped on that wagon.

Her mind started to drift back to Mallard Castle. What magic did the hallowed stones give?

* * *

The double doors to the central meeting room opened and a gaggle of business attired people left the room in a bustle.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware I had another appointment. Miss...?"  
"Mrs Mallard," she stood up to bow lightly to the elder in a red outfit and holding a cane, "No, sorry. My husband's in a meeting in the research department. I came with him mostly for the car ride..."

He seemed suspicious, so Morgana offered him her notebook, "I've been designing a business model for a new restaurant. Buying into a franchise felt too restricting, yet starting from scratch has required a lot of careful consideration."

McDuck flicked briefly through the pages. "Aye, not bad, lass." He handed her back the notebook, "In terms of foot traffic, you've also got to pay in mind the kind of food you're offering."  
"In what manner?"  
"Well, it's the same matter with the clean window. It's not just a window; it's a view. You're not just selling food. You're selling a 'restaurant experience'. It's a might different strategy from a patisserie. For fine cuisine, customers won't mind going a few more steps. Sure fire the rent's cheaper for a start... So long as the experience is good, they're gonna start coming back to you." He spoke to her in some length on his opinion of the subject of restaurant locations.

Morgana smiled at him. "Thank you for the advice. It makes quite a lot of sense."  
"Aye, but you hadn't written it down. Where you park yourself is a key factor of success."  
Morgana smiled and made the note.  
"Interesting a witch tarrying with a capitalist business venture."  
"As much as I love working in a kitchen, management and propriety ownership are also things I'd like to possess."  
McDuck smiled at her. "I think you got what it takes, lass."

"Mr McDuck, would you care to join my husband and I for lunch? Inevitably he'll rope his research friend into coming and your support will help level out the conversation."

McDuck chuckled, pressing the down arrow on the lift, "Aye, it would be a pleasure to share your company. What are they on about?"  
"Something to do with computers."  
They stepped into the lift.  
"I dinnae think an IT specialist and a witch would see eye to eye on much."  
"Now you understand my motivation for inviting you to lunch with us. Your presence will bring some normality back to the table."  
"Your husband's not-."  
"Oh, goodness no. He's a civic services officer." She blinked. "Conversation with him is far more interesting."

* * *

They met at the car park lift foyer. The pasty anxiety on Fenton's face was a complete contrast to Drake's content happiness.  
"Hello, Mr McDuck!" Drake greeted enthusiastically.

They went to McDuck's car.  
"Hi Launchpad!" Drake said to the tall fellow in brown clothes standing there. "Oh, this is going to be the best lunch!" He beamed, "What's the best restaurant in Duckburg?"  
"Well, uh..." Launchpad considered, "Portmands is pretty okay."  
"No, no, the best! Fenton?"  
"La Croix." Fenton answered, "Mr McDuck?"  
"No, no, I told you, it's my shout." Drake marshalled them into the car.

* * *

Morgana sat down to the large table, the four ducks around her a perfect mix bag of emotion. Onside her was the bemused Launchpad, opposite was the anxious and frazzled Fenton, while McDuck mirrored more her own feeling of curiosity. They had all been swept up in the undertow of Drake's practically rapturous state.

She wondered who would break through Drake's engagement with the matter of lunch and the turns that the deeper conversation would take.

* * *

It proved to be Launchpad.

"Gee, DW, never seen you so happy."  
"I got the title, Launchpad!" Drake beamed in joy.  
"A title?" Fenton frowned, "there's a seriously concerning matter and this is more important to you?"  
"Oh, I don't know about that, Fenton." McDuck negated.  
"Agreed." Morgana nodded to McDuck, "accusatorial and distrust make for terrible teamwork. Anything you achieve leaves a bitter taste in your mouth."  
"Yeah. Everything's just so much easier now."

Drake shrugged, "What's bugging you really, Fenton?"  
Fenton rubbed his face. "I'm... when... did you say you'd get the program to them?"  
"I implied by the end of tomorrow." Drake shrugged, "Latest."  
"Latest!" Fenton exclaimed, "You expect me to-."  
"Whoa stop!" Drake returned, "I don't expect you to do anything... You weren't listening?"  
Fenton shrugged uncomfortably, "I may have inadvertently blocked it. You do talk very fast sometimes."

Drake pulled out his phone and in a brief look over it, handed it over the table for Fenton to look. Fenton looked at the screen, scrolling, his brow furrowed.

"This is felonious."  
"Don't forget the context." Drake retorted, "I've put a few criminals away with the help of this thing."  
Fenton looked up seriously at Drake, "If that context changes, I'm coming straight after you."  
Drake beamed, "Seriously, Fenton, you are the best."

Displaced, Fenton handed the phone back. "So I just need to look at upgrading security protocols."  
"Oh, I have to do that for the motorbike. As soon as I have the chance I need to get that thing up and running. I'll send you a copy."  
Morgana finally saw Fenton's expression lighten. "Thanks, that'd really help."

* * *

They ate, Fenton's mood went dropping again.

"You're using criminal tactics to fight criminals."  
Drake looked up, "They're using criminal tactics to exploit society."  
"You're not leading by example."  
Drake frowned, "How do you mean?"

"This program." Fenton gestured. "So they're criminals; but you're still putting them in the firing line of these machines."  
Drake's beak twitched in thought, "These machines have a huge computational power, they're currently programmed to isolate enemy signatures and eradicate them. But they're capable of doing something more complicated."  
"What are you thinking of?"  
"A controlled fire." Drake gestured to the restaurant around them in example: "Load bearing wall, load bearing wall, non-structural wall, non-structural chairs, non-structural tables..." He shrugged.  
Fenton considered, "I can be comfortable with that."

"You'll still need to program in some defense protocols."  
Drake considered, "Well, the whole point of the exercise is psychology, not to actually destroy the facility..."  
"True, but you don't want them getting in to derail your program in a hurry either."  
"Huh." Drake considered, "That's definitely a new programming block."  
"No, I didn't think it was a thing you'd consider, somehow." Fenton shook his head. "A destructive mentality versus a constructive mentality."

Drake chuckled, "Right." He sighed, "Thanks, Fenton."  
Fenton was flustered. "So you actually came all the way to Duckburg just to have lunch with me."  
"Yeah." Drake smiled, "I now know exactly what I need to do and I have the confidence that it's the right thing to do. It'd take Bellum's team three days, to do what we've just done over a few prawn cutlets."

Morgana smiled, shaking her head. "You've been very quiet, Launchpad." She looked over to him. "How do like this restaurant?"  
Launchpad smiled back at her, something courageous in it. "The food's really good." He answered, "It's a little fancy for the usual, but it's great for a one off."  
"Special occasions?"  
Launchpad nodded.  
Morgana smiled back with a nod. "Yes, I think I'm finally beginning to understand..."

For a moment she paused, looking at Drake's finished plate. "You had no problems eating that. What was that thing about 'people and food'?"  
"You're not people," Drake answered, "You're the best people: you're my friends." He stood up to pay at the counter.


	15. Vacation Break

**Of Toys and Curses**

* * *

**36**

**Vacation Break**

* * *

His sister had taken ten years to get back to earth.

The first impression of his cell was that is was just like a prison cell on earth.

His jailers, however were not earthlings. They were tall and thin, like one might imagine lizards as people. No matter how much he quacked or cried or shook the bars, even begged or asked to negotiate, his captors were stoically ignoring him.

"Tough guys, huh?" Donald Duck scowled at the figures standing just outside, keeping watch of the room his pen was in. He snorted. They wouldn't last five minutes with his temper.

* * *

Donald felt time was passing, but only because he slept and woke and ate the strange food he gave them. This place had no day or night so he couldn't even entertain himself with keeping a tally.

It was always a sort of twilight in this world. But... if he was on the moon, as he reckoned he was by the way he had crashed so quickly, then where was the moonlight coming from? The glint of gold around him, reflecting around. Was it the light cast by the earth? Earth-light?

How did these people measure time?

Donald couldn't answer that question either. One thing was certain, though. They had left him, in here, alone, with no distractions. It wasn't perfect, but it was calm.

* * *

Outside, often, Donald heard the sounds of the people talking. He didn't understand the language and he knew that, even if they did speak English, they would need to actually 'try' to understand him. These Moonites were just not the sort.

Just like in school. Just like any regular day in his life. Same problem, different planet.

"You carry your problems with you..." Donald echoed the hard lesson, "Where ever you go, there you are."

* * *

He slept and ate.

It was peaceful here.

Though it wasn't home.

"I need to get off this rock." Donald ruminated, eyeing the door as the guards changed. He'd begun to clock them against his stomach, of all things. They always gave him the same portion of food, The same flavour, the same amount. It was nothing to get excited about.

"That's for sure." He finished his thought aloud.

Donald fell to remembering his sister, the fun they'd had. The arguments.

Junior Woodchucks, like Huey. What were some of those merit badges? Cooking, sewing, art, geology, rope tying...

The biggest thing here was geology.

"Uncle Scrooge would really love it here."

Donald gave a mirthless chuckle. Half his cell was made of gold. He's seen that Della had repaired the rocket with the stuff. She'd been here; she'd escaped these people.

Geology.

* * *

After a while, Donald began to understand some of the noise he was hearing outside.

They were busy building.

"What could it be?" He wondered.

Donald cast his mind back, his initial encounter after the rocket crashed was a blur. The leader, the guards. He'd been too busy trying to catch his breath. Literally.

No, apart from the leader being angry or intense, Donald remembered nothing but a bunch of alien sounding syllables.

Geology.

This cell made him remember the time he visited Uncle Scrooge's diamond mines. He wondered why but his cell walls looked so roughly cut. A dig out from the cliff face like a mine entrance, only this was just a cut out for this one room.

Donald stared at the golden bars. The variations in the texture made it glint differently in places.

"No, it couldn't be...?"

But the more he stared at the bars, the more the irregularities showed.

It became personal. He could almost name the flaws in the gold.

"Joe, Larry, Curly, Bob..." He had caused them in his initial rage when they'd locked him in here.

"It's not alloy..."

It was peaceful in his cell. Donald lay back, his hands behind his head, listening to the builders in the mid distance, people walking back and foward, carrying supplies. Whatever they were doing out there, it was quite an enterprise.

* * *

Time continued to drift.

As Donald listened to the sound of the Moonites' attack force practicing and training, he only grew less fearful of them. Donald wondered over the many places the aliens would land their tiny fleet on earth. Which national defense force they would face, or if the aliens were lucky, which S.H.U.S.H. office?

* * *

It took his sister ten years to get back to earth because she was one duck and not a rocket scientist.

It had only taken Scrooge's team of engineers a couple months to build the rocket from scratch. These people sounded about the same number of people.

Whether the locals repaired Della's rocket or build an entirely new fleet to invade earth, there was still nothing for Donald to do, but keep listening.

Relax.

"And let someone else do all the work for a change." He smiled to himself.


End file.
